GETTING THE WORD OUT

FROZEN STIFF
Did interstellar cloud
kill off the dinosaurs?
IMPRECISION ENGINEERING
To make computers better,
try making them worse
YOU SWINE!
Problem porkers wreak
havoc worldwide
WEEKLY April 2 -8, 2016
MINIMAL LIFE We’ve made the tiniest genome that works
To explain our cosmic backyard,
we need to break gravity
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Science and technology news
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GETTING THE WORD OUT Stuttering starts deep in the brain

CONTENTS
Volume 230 No 3067
This issue online
newscientist.com/issue/3067
News
6
Unlocking the
essence of life
We’ve made the tiniest
genome that works
On the cover
30
Our impossible
galaxy
To explain our cosmic
backyard, we need to
break gravity
Cover image
Lynette Cook/Science Photo Library
Features
34
Getting the
word out
Stuttering starts
deep in the brain
SERGE PICARD/AGENCE VU/CAMERAPRESS TOM DEERINCK & MARK ELLISMAN/NCMIR/UCSD
8 Frozen stiff
Did an interstellar cloud
kill off the dinosaurs?
36 Imprecision engineering
To make computers
better, make them worse
40 You swine!
Porkers wreak havoc
6 Minimal life
Tiniest working genome
34 Getting the word out
Stuttering and the brain
Coming next week…
On the road
Is migration really a crisis?
Black holes unmasked
Frozen universe reveals their secrets
Leaders
3 Exploring the essentials of life isn’t about
playing god. To err should be inhuman
News
4 UPFRONT
Could bomb sensors stop another Brussels?
Fast Antarctic ice melt could see catastrophic
sea rise. Gecko Grippers head to space
6 THIS WEEK
Did a cosmic cloud kill the dinosaurs? Mars
had a short-lived ocean. Prairie dog serial
killers. The twins who felt fear for the first
time. Lock up CO 2 in building materials. How
brain-zapping works. Bright spots on Ceres.
Stacking oranges in 24 dimensions
15 IN BRIEF
Migrating birds stay in UK for longer. Cats
give us rage. Ghost galaxies. Exercise for a
young brain. Unlocking ancient scroll library
Technology
18 Get immersed as first virtual reality games
go on sale. Inside the factory of the future
Aperture
22 What the Zika virus looks like – probably
Opinion
24 Hinkley’s point Paul Ekins urges rethinking
the world’s biggest nuclear power project
24 US in Cuba Michael Clegg on a hopeful start
25 INSIGHT Londoners’ toxic air nightmare
28 Roborescue It’s time robots took their place
in search and rescue, says Robin Murphy
Features
30 Our impossible galaxy (see above left)
34 Getting the word out (see left)
36 Imprecision engineering To make
computers better, try making them worse
40 You swine! Problem porkers wreak havoc
worldwide
CultureLab
42 Animal crackers Pretending to be other
creatures is an altogether human game
43 A drug to make us good Hunting for
morality in a neuroscientific mess
Regulars
52 LETTERS Theory proposes
56 FEEDBACK When is a drug not a drug?
57 THE LAST WORD Atomic bonds
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 1

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Bare necessities
Exploring the essentials of life isn’t about playing God
HAVE we found the essentials of
life? A team in the US has reduced
the number of genes in a modest
bug called Mycoplasma mycoides
by almost half, creating the tiniest
genome that can support vital
survival functions (see page 6).
The new strain is called JVCIsyn3.0,
the letters coming from
the name of the J. Craig Venter
Institute in La Jolla, California.
The institute is named after the
charismatic biotechnologist
who is almost as well known for
his swagger as for his scientific
achievements. The first human
genome to be fully sequenced
was Venter’s own, and he has in
the past drawn opprobrium for
attempting to patent genes. His
apparent grandiosity irks more
buttoned-down colleagues.
And his ambition prompts those
averse to genetic engineering to
invoke inchoate risks, frequently
buttressed by the claim that it
amounts to “playing God”. This
time, Venter’s rhetoric has been
reined in a little. The genome of
JVCI-syn3.0, while put together
on a computer and assembled by
DNA sequencers, includes no new
or artificial genes. If anything, its
creation shows the limits of our
power and depth of our ignorance:
we have no idea what a third of the
genes the team found actually do.
But now we can start figuring
out what the essentials of life
really are. That will, Venter insists,
invigorate synthetic biology,
with benefits for all of us: he, and
Toerrshouldbeinhuman
NEURAL networks, like the ones
grabbing headlines for winning
boardgames or driving cars,
depend on huge amounts of
computing hardware. That in
turn means a colossal amount
of power: the next wave may
consume millions of watts each.
That’s one reason why some
suggest we rethink what we want
computers to be. Reducing the
precision with which they analyse
problems, and putting up with
the odd“error”, can cut zeroes off
their energy consumption (see
page 36). And it has precedent in
the human brain – an unrivalled
piece of hardware using electrical
fluctuations and requiring a
million times less power than
a computer.
Introducing error will also make
computers better at handling
the real world. Neural networks,
others, want to design organisms
that can make biofuels, protein
or vaccines more efficiently.
Since Venter made his first
synthetic cell in 2010, however,
the ease of gene editing has
exploded. This allows scientists to
tweak genomes far more cheaply
than building them from scratch.
The CRISPR technique, which has
itself generated much ethical
controversy, might end up the
more practical and widespread
method. Either way, far from
wilfully taking risks – playing
God, if you really must – synthetic
biologists are developing the
expertise to address very human
needs. Venter’s bullish approach
has brought that a step closer.
Let him swagger. ■
loosely modelled on the brain,
capture some of its problemsolving
capacity. AlphaGo
surprised opponents and
designers alike with Go moves
described by some as “intuitive”.
Computers that play Go,
understand human language and
behaviour, spot patterns across
databases of genetic information
or forecast economic and climate
trends do not deal in absolutes.
It is their rough guesses that will
bring us closest to comprehensive
artificial intelligence. ■
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 3

UPFRONT
ADAM BERRY/GETTY
Satellite lost
JUNKED? Hitomi, a Japanese
astronomy satellite, seems to be
tumbling through space, and may
have broken up. It was due to
come online on 26 March, but
failed to communicate with Earth.
A tweet by the US Joint Space
Operations Center reported five
pieces of debris around the
satellite shortly afterwards.
All may not be lost. The Japan
Aerospace Exploration Agency
heard a brief burst of signal from
the craft, and video taken from
the ground suggests it is falling
through space.
“That indicates the sat was
at that point alive, just unable
to point its antenna at Earth,”
says Jonathan McDowell at the
“If we never hear from
the satellite again,
I would be devastated
but not surprised”
Can we sniff out bombs?
LAST week, terrorists walked into scanned by an array of sensors as
Brussels’ Zaventem airport and
they walk through the tunnel to
detonated bomb-laden luggage get into airports or train stations.
in the check-in area. They also
The Lincoln Laboratory at
bombed a subway station.
the Massachusetts Institute of
As New Scientist went to press,
Technology has a different approach.
35 people had been killed and
A team there has turned to lasers
hundreds wounded.
to “sniff” explosives from a distance.
Can we stop attacks like this?
The lab says it can scan spaces like
Airport security focuses on keeping check-in areas from 100 metres
explosives off planes. Stopping
away by sweeping them with
bombs detonating in crowded
lasers tuned to frequencies that
check-in areas and transit terminals vaporise molecules found in
is a bigger challenge. Security
bombs. This material makes a tiny
checkpoints work, but they cause sound as it vaporises, which is
delays and create queues that can amplified and detected.
also be a target. But there are new
Lasers are also used in a device
ways to scan people as they walk. called G-Scan, developed by Laser
Cameron Ritchie, head of
Detect Systems of Ramat Gan in Israel.
technology at the US-based security This fires a green laser at a target then
firm Morpho, is working on a “tunnel uses Raman spectroscopy to
of truth”. Passengers would be
“fingerprint” the molecules that
scatter light back. It can identify
anything visible, including bottle
contents or surface smears.
Detecting explosive material from
a distance would enable security
services to track down bomb-making
supplies – not just finished weapons.
By scanning for telltale chemicals on
people’s bodies and clothes as they
move around cities, security services
may be able to catch suspects before
they have built their device.
One concern is that such sensitive
detectors may trigger many false
alarms. There is also the question
of whether airport and train security
staff can respond to a positive signal
quickly and effectively enough to
neutralise a threat, says Brian
Jenkins, a security researcher at the
Rand Corporation. “You can’t just yell,
‘hey you with the bomb’.”
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics. He says it might be
possible to talk to Hitomi and
stop it tumbling. “But if you told
me we were never going to hear
from the sat again, I would be
devastated but not surprised,”
he says.
Hitomi’s mission is to
observe the universe in X-rays,
investigating matters such as
the birth of black holes and the
origins of cosmic rays.
Space geckos
IN A few years, the exterior of the
International Space Station could
be crawling with geckos. It’s not
an alien invasion, or the plot of a
low-budget sci-fi movie. The
robotic geckos could follow from
an experiment NASA launched to
the International Space Station
last week aboard an uncrewed
Cygnus spacecraft.
The Gecko Gripper devices use
tiny artificial hairs that replicate
the ones geckos use to climb walls.
They are designed to help
4 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

For new stories every day, visit newscientist.com/news
60 SECONDS
astronauts keep track of objects in
zero gravity, and enable robots to
crawl around a spacecraft to
inspect and repair it.
The bots have already been
tested on parabolic aircraft flights,
where they grabbed and
manipulated 10-kilogram and
100-kg objects during 20-second
periods of microgravity. On the
ISS trip, astronauts will test the
system by attaching five devices
in a range of sizes to 30 surfaces
inside the space station at
different angles, to check how well
they grip. The devices will be left
in place for periods of time
between two weeks and a year.
HIV prevention
COLIN MONTEATH/HEDGEHOG HOUSE/MINDEN
Zika’s arrival traced
ONE person carried the Zika virus
to the Americas a full two years
before its detection there last year.
Brazil was the first country in
the Americas to report Zika, in
May 2015, and the virus has since
infected hundreds of thousands
of people in 33 countries. The
virus is native to Africa but in the
last 10 years it jumped to some of
the islands of Micronesia and
Polynesia in the Pacific.
A genetic analysis suggests the
virus in the Americas came from
an individual infected in
Polynesia, and that it arrived
IT SAVES money and prolongs A MASSIVE rise in sea level is coming,
lives, but who should pay – the UK and it will trigger climate chaos
health service or local councils? around the world. That was the
Trials around the world have message from a controversial recent
shown that Truvada, an antiviral paper by climate scientist James
drug, helps prevent uninfected, Hansen. It was slated by many for
at-risk people from getting HIV. assuming – rather than showing –
After 18 months of negotiations, that sea level could rise by between
it looked certain that NHS England 1 and 5 metres by 2100.
would foot the bill if Truvada was But now, just a week after being
rolled out across England. Instead, formally published, it is being backed
on 21 March NHS England
up by another study. “He was
announced it would mount a
speculating on massive fresh water
two-year, £2 million pilot study of discharge to the ocean that I don’t
500 men at high risk of infection think anybody thought was possible
to assess the efficacy and cost.
before,” says Rob DeConto of the
NHS England also backed away University of Massachusettsfrom
funding the drug, saying Amherst. “Now we’re about to
that the bill should be met by local publish a paper that says these rates
authorities, which provide other of fresh water input are possible.”
HIV services.
“After 18 months, it’s galling to
be told that,” says Sarah Radcliffe
at the National AIDS Trust charity.
She says there is abundant
evidence that Truvada is effective
and cuts healthcare costs.
Teresa O’Neill of London
Councils says the capital has the
country’s highest rates of HIV so
councils there would face a high
bill. She points out that it costs
£380,000 to treat an HIV-positive
person for life, versus £4700 to
supply Truvada for a year, so you’d
have to take the drug for 80 years
before it became more expensive. –Still there… for now–
between May and December 2013.
“One person with the infection
was bitten by a mosquito and that
chain of infection persisted,” says
Oliver Pybus of the University of
Oxford (Science, doi.org/bdrx).
It isn’t surprising it took two
“Zika in the Americas came
from an individual infected
in Polynesia, and it arrived
in the second half of 2013”
years for Zika’s presence to come
to light. Its symptoms closely
resemble those of dengue and
chikungunya viruses, which were
already circulating.
Catastrophic Antarctic melting
DeConto’s model includes factors
that previous studies omitted. First,
floating ice shelves around Antarctica
will soon be exposed to above-zero
summer air temperatures, speeding
their melt, he says. Second, once the
shelves are gone, the huge ice cliffs
that remain will begin to collapse
(Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature17145).
DeConto’s findings suggest that
even if countries meet the pledges
made as part of the Paris agreement,
global sea level could still rise 1 metre
by 2100. If emissions keep climbing it
could go up more than 2 metres.
“Today we’re measuring global sea
level rise in millimetres per year,”
DeConto says. “We’re talking about
the potential for centimetres per year
just from Antarctica.”
Bleach bum
It’s a white-out for the Great Barrier
Reef. An aerial survey last week
showed that at least 95 per cent of
the reef’s northern 1000 kilometres
has been severely bleached. It’s the
worst case in history, says the
National Coral Bleaching Taskforce,
which carried out the survey.
Bleaching is caused by high sea
temperatures and can kill coral.
Apple vs FBI
The stand-off is over, for now. The
FBI has successfully broken into the
iPhone belonging to San Bernardino
gunman Syed Rizwan Farook,
bringing to a halt its legal battle with
Apple. In court documents filed on
Monday, the FBI said it no longer
required Apple’s assistance to access
files on the phone, although it hasn’t
made public how it did it.
Stroke protection
Giving mice antibiotics can protect
them from brain damage caused by
stroke. Antibiotics change the makeup
of the mice’s gut bacteria, which
in turn alters the immune cells
that travel to the brain and would
normally cause inflammation. The
treatment appears to reduce cell
destruction by around 60 per cent
(Nature Medicine, doi.org/bdrw).
Green boom
More than twice as much was
spent on new capacity to generate
electricity from renewables like
solar and wind than on power
stations that burn fossil fuels last
year. China was responsible for twothirds
of the renewables investment
in the developing world, and 36 per
cent of the global total.
Permafrost pups
Two puppies that lived 12,460 years
ago have been discovered perfectly
preserved in permafrost in the
northern Russian region of Yakutia.
Last week, one of them underwent
an autopsy so that its organs can be
compared with those of modern
dogs and wolves.
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 5

THIS WEEK
Smallest ever genome comes to life
Humans built it, but we don’t know what a third of its genes actually do
Andy Coghlan
WE HAVE even further to
go to understand life than we
thought. In creating the latest
landmark synthetic organism –
the world’s first minimal
genome – Craig Venter and his
team have discovered that we
don’t know the functions of
almost a third of the genes
that are vital for life.
“Finding so many genes without
a known function is unsettling,
but it’s exciting because it’s left
us with much still to learn,” says
Alistair Elfick, a bioengineer at the
University of Edinburgh, UK. “It’s
like the ‘dark matter’ of biology.”
Venter, founder of the J. Craig
Venter Institute in La Jolla,
California, has long hoped to
unravel life’s essential toolkit.
Now his team has created the
first minimal genome – the tiniest
possible stash of DNA capable of
supporting life. With 473 genes,
the new cell, JCVI-syn3.0, has at
least 50 fewer genes than nature’s
record-holder for the shortest
genome in a self-sustaining living
organism, Mycoplasma genitalium
(Science, doi.org/bdrz).
The feat builds on JCVI-syn1.0,
LIFE FROM SCRATCH? NOT YET
The design of the first synthetic
minimal genome hints at new ways
to build life. So can we do this from
scratch? Not quite.
For a start, the genome is
based on a slimline version of
one from a naturally occurring
bacterium. The genes were not
dreamed up by people, but
had already evolved in nature.
Also, to make the minimal genome,
researchers didn’t create any new
genes or biological functions,
but simply dumped those not
TOM DEERINCK & MARK ELLISMAN/NCMIR/UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SAN DIEGO
the first living bacterium reliant
on a synthetic copy of an existing
genome, unveiled by Venter in
2010. That genome was designed
in a computer, before assembly
and insertion into cells.
Since then, Venter and his
colleagues, co-led by Clyde
Hutchison, have been whittling
essential for keeping the cell alive.
Then there was the cell itself.
Once the genome was designed
from code on a computer, it had to
be put inside a living cell stripped of
its own, native genome. That cell also
came from a living natural bacterium
that had all the intricate cellular
machinery already in place. And the
process revealed we have no clue
what a third of those vital genes do.
So the ability to create life from
scratch without nature’s help is still
way beyond our capabilities.
–Minimalist life–
down the 901 genes of JCVIsyn1.0
to the minimum for
supporting life. With the help
of transposons –“jumping
genes” that insert themselves
into sections of DNA and disrupt
individual genes – the team
tested which genes a bacterium
can do without. They then
designed a stripped-down
genome, and inserted it into
an existing cell that had had
its own genome removed.
But their first attempts at a
minimalist cell didn’t succeed.
“Every one of our designs failed
because we based these on our
existing knowledge base,”
says Venter.
Their breakthrough came when
they realised that some genes
they thought were expendable
were actually crucial. “To get a
viable cell, the researchers needed
to make discoveries about many
essential and semi-essential genes
that we did not know about,” says
Steven Benner of the Foundation
for Applied Molecular Evolution
in Alachua, Florida.
Surprisingly, some 31 per cent
of the vital genes have no known
function, suggesting we may
still have much to learn about
the cellular processes crucial
to maintaining life. “It means
we know about two-thirds of
essential biology,” says Venter.
Hutchison says it is an “exciting
possibility” that some of these
genes perform key functions
we don’t know of yet.
It’s unclear how genes of
such universal importance
have ducked under the radar for
so long. One possibility is that
the mystery genes do actually
code for known functions, but
their sequences are so different
from their equivalents in other
organisms that we have not been
able to spot and identify them.
Once these mysterious extra
genes were included, the minimal
cells were found to live, grow and
divide, forming clumps of cells in
a dish of nutrients.
Bacterial Eden
Of the genes with known
functions, most make proteins
vital for survival, or check the
fidelity of genome duplication
when the cell divides. Other
essential genes include ones
that code for cell-membrane
proteins and those that enable
the organism to turn nutrients
into energy.
But Venter’s organism was
produced in a bacterial Eden
with every comfort provided,
including a plentiful energy
supply of easy-to-process glucose.
In a harsher environment, such
as soil or water, it would need
extra genes to compete with rivals
for resources, and to survive and
6 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

In this section
■ Did a cosmic cloud kill the dinosaurs?, page 8
■ The twins who felt fear for the first time, page 9
■ Get immersed as first virtual reality games go on sale, page 18
grow using scarcer sources of
nutrients. “It is likely that their
degree of ‘essential-ness’ will be
environment-specific,”says Elfick.
Next, the team plans to
work out the functions of the
mystery genes. What they find
out could yield insights into
how genes can be repurposed for
synthetic biology, or enable us
to design entirely new genomes
for the first time (see “Life from
scratch?”, below left).
“What we’ve done is important
because it is a step towards
“Finding so many genes
without a known function
is exciting. It’s like the ‘dark
matter’ of biology”
completely understanding how a
living cell works,” says Hutchison.
“If we can really understand this,
then we will be able to design cells
efficiently for the production
of pharmaceutical and other
useful products.”
Bioengineers have applauded
the feat, but some are sceptical
about the commercial potential.
Some believe it is cheaper and
more effective to tweak existing
natural genomes, using
techniques such as gene editing,
than it is to build new genomes
from the bottom up. “It’s a
milestone,” says George Church
of Harvard Medical School,
who is a pioneer of CRISPR gene
editing. “But the market will tell
youifit’svaluable.”
Such efforts to design synthetic
life forms are often referred to
as playing God, and frequently
raise fears about their possible
impact on the environment and
human health. “If we’re already
playing God, we’re not doing a
particularly good job of it,” Elfick
says. “Simply streamlining what’s
already in nature doesn’t seem
very God-like and, if anything, is
a very humbling exercise.”
He says we should not worry
about this synthetic cell: “There
are plenty of bugs already out
there we should be much more
worried about.” ■
FEDERICO DE LUCA
ONE MINUTE INTERVIEW
Tiny but mighty
A bacterium that can thrive with the smallest feasible string of
synthetic genes is no vanity project, says Richard Kitney
PROFILE
Richard Kitney is a professor of biomedical
systems engineering at Imperial College London,
and co-director of the Centre for Synthetic
Biology and Innovation. He was not involved
in Craig Venter’s research
What is the main advance with the creation of
the smallest synthetic genome, JCVI-syn3.0?
What Craig Venter’s team has done in making this
minimal genome is to identify clear gaps in our
knowledge about what makes a cell survive. They
have essentially removed sections of the genome
one by one to see what happens – in other words,
to see if it dies and to try and understand why.
What new insights has the bacterium given
about life’s minimum requirements?
The failure of a predecessor organism with even
fewer genes led to the refinement of the rules for
designing a genome, and identified a group of
indispensable genes with functions we now need
to investigate.
What do you make of the fact that almost a
third of the genes in syn3.0 have no known
function, yet seem essential to life? What might
they be doing?
This is partially because of the incomplete state of
knowledge within the field. As Venter’s team also
points out, the tools used to match genes in syn3.0’s
genome to comparable ones with known functions
in other organisms may have failed to identify
some genes because their sequences differ too
much. It is of course an intriguing question as to
what any unidentified genes do.
Does the fact that Venter borrowed the
“shell” of a different organism as a host and
provided a perfect environment for growth
detract from his achievement?
Borrowing the shell of a naturally occurring
bacterium is of course a major simplification of the
technical challenge of making a synthetic organism.
But it did allow the team to concentrate on the
problem of genome minimisation–averylarge
endeavour on its own. Because the researchers
chose a rich growth medium, they could snip out
many functions from the original host, as these
are not needed when food is plentiful. What all
this highlights is that there is in fact no universal
minimal cell, only a minimal cell for a given set
of conditions.
Does the work offer clues about how
life began?
No, it tells us nothing about how life started
naturally.
There has been criticism that such work is
a vanity project with no real scientific worth.
Do you agree?
Venter and his colleagues are serious researchers
who are pursuing an important goal, so this is
absolutely not a vanity project. It is an important
step towards meeting synthetic biology’s need
for stable, well-understood host cells that make
and do useful things for us.
Does it take us closer towards creating
living organisms from scratch?
This is not really a step forward in that sense.
And where will the work go next?
What is clear is that the host genome as
presented has quite a way to go in terms of
extending the catalogue of usable organisms
available for synthetic biology.
Interview by Andy Coghlan
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 7

THIS WEEK
LYNN HILTON/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Did a cosmic cloud
kill off the dinos?
Shannon Hall
A NEBULAR winter could have
doomed the dinosaurs. The clue is
a thick layer of an extraterrestrial
element on the ocean floor, now
claimed to be the result of Earth
colliding with a galactic cloud.
The most-heard explanation
for the dinosaurs’ demise is an
asteroid impact, which left a
crater off the coast of Mexico and
a worldwide 30-centimetre-thick
layer of iridium, an element
otherwise rare on Earth.
But every so often, astronomers
suspect, the solar system ploughs
into a giant nebula of molecular
gas and dust much denser than
typical interstellar space. The
resulting galactic fog would have
darkened skies and cooled the
ground until a harsh winter set
in. It would also have destroyed
the ozone layer and halted
photosynthesis.
Now Tokuhiro Nimura of the
Japan Spaceguard Association in
Ibara and colleagues claim such
a collision could have ended the
dinosaurs’150-million-year reign.
At a site in the Pacific Ocean, the
team found an iridium-rich
sediment layer 5 metres thick,
too thick for a sudden event like
an asteroid strike to account for it.
They argue that a collision with
a giant molecular cloud – which
could take Earth at least a million
years to pass through, picking
up iridium steadily as it does so –
fits the discovery much better.
“Such an encounter and related
perturbation in global climate [is]
a more plausible explanation for
the mass extinction than a single
impact event,” they write (arxiv.
org/abs/1603.06136).
Adrian Melott at the University
–No escaping this winter–
of Kansas in Lawrence says the
idea is wacky but not impossible.
“We know that these clouds exist,”
he says. “We know that we’re likely
to run into one sooner or later.
And they have some evidence
from the ocean floor in favour of
their idea.”
Others question that evidence.
David Kring at the Lunar and
Planetary Institute in Houston,
Texas, argues that the deposit
could have been disturbed by
currents, organisms and drilling,
broadening the layer locally.
“There have been several
studies specifically designed to
determine the thickness of the
iridium anomaly,” he says. “They
all indicate the anomaly is sharp,
not broad,” which would favour
the impact hypothesis.
Even so, a collision with a cloud
could have dislodged rocks from
the fringes of the solar system and
sent them hurtling toward Earth –
perhaps explaining the crater and
leaving a thin iridium layer intact.
We could test this idea by
searching the ocean floor for
radioactive elements likely to
be replenished from space, like
uranium and plutonium, says
Alexander Pavlov at NASA’s
Goddard Space Flight Center in
Maryland. Most uranium isotopes
aren’t even found in the solar
system, so finding them along
with iridium would prove that
something interstellar, like a vast
nebula, was the true culprit. ■
Asteroid shower
brought a sea to
young, dry Mars
MARS may once have had an ocean –
but only for a geological eye blink.
This puts a dampener on ideas that
there is or was life on the Red Planet.
That’s according to a theory from
Tim Parker of NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Speaking at the Lunar and Planetary
Science Conference in The Woodlands,
Texas, in March, he argued that a
sustained barrage of asteroids hitting
the young Mars could have delivered
short-lived water to the surface.
Signs that Mars was once rife with
water litter the surface. These include
polygonal cracks seen by NASA’s
Opportunity rover. On Earth, these
require evaporation to form, so Parker
sees them as an indication that the
rover is traversing what was once the
edge of an ocean. “The uniformity of
the surface is much easier to explain
in a shallow marine setting,” he says.
But models of the ancient Mars
climate require a thicker atmosphere
to keep water liquid on the surface.
This atmosphere must have somehow
been rapidly lost to leave Mars as dry
as we see it today.
Now Parker and his colleagues say a
tumultuous time in the solar system’s
history known as the late heavy
bombardment could provide the water
with no need for a major change in the
atmosphere. During this period about
4 billion years ago, a barrage of
asteroids is thought to have collided
“This ocean would have
frozen and disappeared –
leavingverylittletimefor
life to evolve”
with the inner planets. Such asteroids
could have brought water to an
initially dry Mars, says Parker.
Because Mars’s atmosphere
was so thin, this ocean would have
frozen and disappeared after just a
few hundred million years – allowing
very little time for life to evolve.
“Tim is always thinking outside
of the box,” says Devon Burr of the
University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
“There are a variety of ways of
warming Mars and getting liquid
water, I don’t know if the late heavy
bombardment, for me, is conclusive.”
Jacob Aron ■
8 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news
JOHN HOOGLAND
Prairie dogs are
serial killers of
ground squirrel
IT WAS thought to be just a small,
furry grass-nibbler, but the whitetailed
prairie dog has another life – as
a serial killer. Some prairie dogs bite
their ground squirrel neighbours to
death on a regular basis, the first time
that a mammalian herbivore has been
seen killing other herbivores.
What’s more, those who kill go on
to produce more surviving offspring,
improving their evolutionary fitness,
say John Hoogland, a biologist at the
University of Maryland Center for
Environmental Science, and Charles
Brown of the University of Tulsa,
Oklahoma. The duo recorded
163 killings of the squirrels over
six years in the Arapaho National
Wildlife Refuge in Colorado.
Hoogland describes the killings
as quick, subtle and unanticipated.
While some prairie dogs chased the
squirrels, others stalked them, waited
outside their burrows or even dug
babies out of their holes. They bit
them to death, then abandoned
the carcass and resumed foraging
on nearby vegetation. “The killer
supreme killed seven babies from the
same litter in one day,” says Hoogland.
Over the six years, about 47 prairie
dogs killed squirrels, and 19 of
them were serial slayers, including
one female who dispatched nine
squirrels over four years (Proceedings
of the Royal Society B, doi.org/bdpv).
For squirrels a competitor species
can be as much of a risk as a predator.
Aisling Irwin ■
–Not going to eat that...–
BRAND NEW IMAGES/GETTY
‘Fearless’ twins show
body affects emotions
IS FEAR all in the mind – or body?
Experiments on twins who can’t
feel fear are suggesting that some
emotions rely on us becoming
aware of changes to our body.
Many studies have shown that
the amygdalae, two almondshaped
structures in our brain,
are crucial for feeling fear. People
who have lost them through
injury or disease also lose the
ability to feel most kinds of fear.
In 2013, Justin Feinstein, then
at the University of Iowa in Iowa
City, and his colleagues managed
to scare three“fearless”people –
two female identical twins and
a woman known as S. M., all of
whom had had their amygdalae
destroyed by illness. Feinstein
made them inhale carbon dioxide,
giving them the sensation of
choking. This was the first time
that S. M. had experienced fear
since she was a child. It showed
that the amygdalae are not
essential for all kinds of fear.
One theory of emotion suggests
that feelings are not generated
directly by the brain, but through
an awareness of our body. When
–In tune with their body state–
we see a spider, for example,
the theory says we feel fear not
because emotional centres of
the brain are activated, but
because the brain evaluates the
situation and releases hormones
such as adrenaline that increase
“This seems to be evidence
that extreme panic has
different circuitry from
normal fear”
our heart rate and give us sweaty
palms. It is our awareness of
these changes to our body that
we interpret as fear.
Now Feinstein’s colleague
Sahib Khalsa, at the University
of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and his team
have given the fearless twins a
drug that mimics the action of
adrenaline. High levels of this
drug can cause temporary
breathing difficulties and rapid
heart palpitations. The team
asked the twins and a group of
volunteers with intact amygdalae
to rate their experience of these
changes on a scale from 0 to 10.
Both twins had the same
physical reaction as the other
volunteers – their heart and
breathing rates increased. But
only one twin said she was aware
of both these changes, rating her
breathing problems as a 10 on the
scale. She also reported a choking
sensation and had a panic attack.
The volunteers also noted
breathing difficulties and a
quarter had panic attacks.
The other twin noted a slight
awareness of her heart rate
changing, but she rated her
physical symptoms as close
to zero and did not panic.
The results indicate that
there are mechanisms beyond
the amygdalae that are involved
in fear and anxiety, and support
the theory that an awareness of
physiological changes may be
necessary to experience some
kinds of emotion (The Journal
of Neuroscience, doi.org/bdpz).
However, the fact that the
twins – who both have damaged
amygdalae because of a rare
genetic condition – had different
responses suggests there may be
environmental factors at play, too.
“This seems to be more evidence
that extreme panic has its own
underlying circuitry that is
different from normal fear,”
says Nick Medford, who studies
consciousness and emotion at the
Sackler Centre for Consciousness
Science in Brighton, UK.
Further experiments involving
scanning the twins’ brains while
they experience fear would help
us identify mechanisms of
emotion in the brain, says Khalsa.
Such studies could also lead to
alternative treatments for anxiety
disorders. There is some evidence
to suggest that people who have
abnormal awareness of their
bodily functions are more prone
to anxiety and depression.
“If you could pinpoint neural
regions responsible for our
awareness of our body state and
the different mechanisms that
generate fearful feelings, you
might have new targets to
modulate or reduce anxiety,”
says Khalsa. Helen Thomson ■
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 9

THIS WEEK
Emissions reveal
a constructive side
Richard Schiffman
TAKING carbon dioxide out of the
atmosphere is crucial to slowing
the progress of climate change.
But rather than lock all that CO 2
away underground, what if we
could use it to make things?
That’s the aim of a pilot plant
at the University of Newcastle
near Sydney, Australia.
Launched last week, the plant
will test the commercial potential
of mineral carbonation, a process
that forms stable materials by
chemically binding CO 2
to
minerals containing calcium or
magnesium. The plant will bind
the gas into crushed serpentinite
rocks to create magnesium
carbonate, which can be used to
produce cement, paving stones
and plasterboard.
It could be a way of
“permanently and safely
disposing of CO 2
and making
useful products in the process”,
says Klaus Lackner of Arizona
State University in Tempe,
who pioneered the technique
in the lab.
The process happens naturally
when rocks are gradually
MINERAL CARBONATION INTERNATIONAL
weathered by exposure to CO 2
in the air. This helped cut the
proportion of the gas in the
ancient atmosphere to levels
low enough for life to flourish,
says Geoff Brent, senior
scientist at Orica, an explosives
– Made with greenhouse gases–
manufacturer based in Melbourne.
His firm is supplying the plant
with CO 2
– a by-product of making
ammonium nitrate.
But we can’t afford to wait
millions of years for geology
to rid the atmosphere of our
greenhouse emissions. “It’s about
turning the natural process into
a large-scale industrial process
on our required timescale – which
is extremely urgent,” says Brent.
There are several challenges.
Mining for serpentinite is energyintensive
and damaging to the
environment, for one thing.
But Brent says the rock is one of
the most common on Earth, and
that carbonation plants could
be built near mining areas to
reduce transport emissions.
Another objection is that
mineral carbonation costs too
much compared with storing
CO 2
underground. However,
underground storage has its own
problems: suitable repositories
are hard to find and there is a risk
that the gas may one day escape.
“Carbonation is more secure in
the long term, because there is no
danger of leakage and no need to
maintain long gas pipelines and
transportation infrastructure to
move the CO 2
, since we will be
obtaining it on-site,” says Brent.
“The whole point of the
project is to get the price down
low enough,” says Marcus Dawe,
CEO of Mineral Carbonation
International, the firm
coordinating the effort. “It is
all about how we can make
this economical.”
Dawe and his team are
optimistic that they will make
progress by the end of the 18-
month pilot project. But for
mineral carbonation to take off,
there will need to be a higher
price on carbon, says Dawe,
because right now “nothing is
more economical than putting
CO 2
in the air”. ■
Is calcium boost
behind brain
zap effects?
WE MAY finally be figuring out how
an increasingly popular therapy that
uses electricity to boost the brain’s
functioning has its effects – by
pushing up levels of calcium in cells.
Transcranial direct current
stimulation (tDCS) has been linked to
effects such as accelerated learning
and improving the symptoms of
depression. It involves using
electrodes to send a weak current
across the brain, which proponents
think changes the electrical
properties of neurons, leading
to changes in their connectivity.
But the cellular mechanisms that
lead to such broad neurological
changes are not clear and some are
doubtful that tDCS has any effect on
the brain. Despite this, devices are
being developed to sell to people
keen to influence their own brains.
Now Hajime Hirase at the RIKEN
Brain Science Institute in Tokyo,
Japan, and his colleagues have an
answer. They have identified sudden
surges in calcium flow in the brains of
mice seconds after they receive low
doses of tDCS. The surges start in
star-shaped cells called astrocytes
that strengthen connections between
neurons and regulate the electrical
signals that pass between them.
The team used mice that had been
engineered to show depression-like
symptoms, such as struggling less
against restraints. After they had
received tDCS, the mice struggled
for longer. The same effect didn’t
happen in mice whose calcium
“By triggering calcium
surges, tDCS may
be interfering with
neuron connectivity”
signalling had been disabled (Nature
Communications, doi.org/bdr2).
Astrocytes use calcium to manage
the flow of information between
neurons, and these findings suggest
that tDCS artificially boosts the
process. Hirase thinks calcium
signalling may also be behind other
suggested effects of tDCS, such as
improved memory.
Understanding the link between
tDCS and calcium could dispel doubts
about the technique. “Scepticism is
not so much about tDCS itself as it is
about inflated expectations,” says
Walter Paulus of the University of
Göttingen in Germany. Sally Adee ■
10 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

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THIS WEEK
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/PSI/LPI
Bright spots and
ice dazzle on Ceres
Jacob Aron, The Woodlands, Texas
LET’S take a look inside. The latest
from NASA’s Dawn probe, which
has been in orbit around the dwarf
planet Ceres since April last year,
suggests this tiny world has water
ice on the surface and craters that
provide a window on its interior.
A spectacular view of the
beguiling bright spots at the heart
of the 92-kilometre-wide Occator
crater from just 375 kilometres up,
shown above, was just one of the
latest findings unveiled by the
mission team at the Lunar and
Planetary Science Conference
in The Woodlands, Texas, on
22 March.
These spots have perplexed
researchers since Dawn first
reached Ceres, the largest object
in the asteroid belt. Probing their
nature could give clues to Ceres’s
interior. In the new image, Dawn
has seen colour variations across
the surface of the bright regions.
These wouldn’t be visible to the
human eye, but reflect possible
differences in the composition
of the material seen by Dawn.
This close-in view reveals that
the central bright spot actually
sits within a 10-kilometre-wide
depression inside the crater.
At the centre of that is a small
mound. “We’re starting to see
how complex the distribution of
the bright material is,” said Carol
Raymond of NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in California.
How this arrangement formed
is still a mystery. Timothy Bowling
at the University of Chicago
presented a possible explanation,
“Seeing water ice anywhere
on Ceres is a surprise – it
is warm enough at the
surface for it to evaporate”
in which a meteorite smacked
into Ceres, exposing icy material
from as much as 40 kilometres
below the surface and heating it up.
As this material settled into the
Occator crater we see today, the
water would evaporate, leaving
bright salt and minerals behind.
The floor of Occator is also
riddled with fractures that
seem to be older than the crater
itself. These could have provided
an escape route for material
How to stack
oranges in 24
dimensions
IT’S a tight squeeze. Mathematicians
have proved that they know the
best way to pack spheres in eight
and 24 dimensions – the first time
this problem has been solved in a
new dimension for almost 20 years.
“I think they’re fantastic results. I’m
excited that this has been done at last,”
says Thomas Hales at the University
of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The sphere-packing problem asks
a deceptively simple question: what
–Beguiling brightness– arrangement crams the most spheres
into a limited volume? It is easy to
beneath the surface.
describe, but difficult to prove.
The team behind Dawn has also In 1611, Johannes Kepler suggested
made an unexpected discovery: that the best arrangement for
water ice hiding in a crater. The 3-dimensional spheres like oranges
10-kilometre-wide Oxo crater is a pyramid. But it took until 1998
seems to have formed relatively for Hales to publish a proof – and
recently. The find comes from another 16 years to formally verify it.
spectral data taken during Dawn’s Meanwhile, mathematicians have
higher orbit in June last year.
been gunning for higher dimensions.
Seeing water ice anywhere on Now, Maryna Viazovska at Humboldt
Ceres is a surprise as it is warm University of Berlin has proved that
enough at the surface for any
a grid called the E8 lattice is the best
ice to evaporate into space. That packing in eight dimensions (arxiv.
means it must have been exposed org/abs/1603.04246v1). Almost
recently, said Jean-Philippe
immediately after, she teamed up
Combe of the Bear Fight Institute with other researchers to prove that
in Winthrop, Washington. “This a related arrangement called the
area is possibly a cold trap where Leech lattice is best in 24 dimensions
H 2
0-rich materials could be
(arxiv.org/abs/1603.06518v1).
preserved for at least some time,” The fact that these dimensions
he said.
were next to fall is no coincidence.
So where has this water
For reasons we don’t understand,
come from? Models of Ceres’s such lattices don’t show up in other
formation, along with the
dimensions. But they were suspected
sightings of bright spots like the to be the most efficient arrangements
ones at Occator, suggest the dwarf in the dimensions they apply to.
planet has an icy sub-surface layer “These are unbelievably good
that is mixed up with salt and packings,” says Henry Cohn at
rock. The ice at Oxo could have Microsoft Research New England in
been exposed by a landslide,
Cambridge, Massachusetts. “The
or dug up by a meteorite.
spheres in these dimensions fit
Dawn will continue to gather perfectly, in ways that don’t happen
data about Ceres until August at in other dimensions.”
least, and possibly into next year. Packing spheres in 24 dimensions
But some questions about this isn’t just a mathematical game. The
enigmatic world may not
problem has applications in wireless
be answered until a repeat visit. communication, and has been used to
“It would be nice to land there, communicate with spacecraft in the
wouldn’t it?” said Raymond. ■ distant solar system. Lisa Grossman ■
12 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

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IN BRIEF
JOHN WATKINS/FLPA/CORBIS
Migrating birds arrive in the
UKearlierandleavelater
SOME common migrating birds – including the blackcap,
(pictured above) – are staying in the UK for two weeks
or more longer than half a century ago. “We knew that
birds were arriving earlier in spring, but this is the first
study I know of in Europe that has also tracked when they
leave in autumn,” says Stuart Newson of the British Trust
for Ornithology.
Newson has tapped into amateur observations of bird
migrations collected over more than 50 years, starting
with paper files in the 1960s and ending with 800,000
records from BirdTrack, an internet-based volunteer
Ghostgalaxiesarefullofdarkmatter
THERE’S more than meets the eye.
A so-called ultra-diffuse galaxy
has been found to consist of over
99.96 per cent dark matter.
An ultra-diffuse galaxy is a
huge galaxy with relatively few
stars widely spread out, so it looks
ghostly and is hard to study.
The fact that they hold their
shape makes researchers think
such galaxies must consist of at
least 98 per cent dark matter – the
stuff thought to make up about
80 per cent of the mass in the
universe overall. But no one
had directly measured it.
Now Michael Beasley at the
Institute of Astrophysics of the
Canary Islands, Spain, and his
colleagues have “weighed” an
ultra-diffuse galaxy in the
Virgo cluster named VCC 1287.
The team measured the speeds
of seven globular star clusters
observation network, to study 14 common migrating
birds. He found that 11 species arrive earlier and four
leave later (Ibis, doi.org/bdpr).
Amateur data is best, he says. Professional
ornithologists have mostly counted birds arriving at a
handful of coastal observation points. And many previous
studies concentrated on dating the first birds to arrive.
Observations from citizen scientists avoid such biases,
and cover leaving times too.
One reason for late leaving could be that females are
laying more than one clutch of eggs thanks to the longer
breeding season, says Tim Sparks of Coventry University,
UK. Indeed, the study also shows that birds taking most
advantage of earlier springs and balmy late autumns,
such as the blackcap, are increasing in number.
orbiting the galaxy, a clue to how
much mass it contains, and found
that it must have about 80 billion
times more mass than the sun
and 3000 times more dark matter
than stellar mass (Astrophysical
Journal Letters, doi.org/bdpb).
VCC 1287 was probably born
with both dark matter and gas
but lost the latter as it fell into
the Virgo cluster. Without gas,
it couldn’t create new stars, so it
ended up with lots of dark matter
but little light.
Exercise keeps
your brain younger
YOUNG in body, young in mind.
Older people who are physically
active seem to stave off memory
loss – but only if they start early.
Clinton Wright at the University
of Miami in Florida and his
colleagues followed 876 people,
starting at an average age of 71,
over five years. At the end, the
brains of non-exercisers looked
10 years older than those who
did moderate exercise. Those
who exercised also showed
less memory loss (Neurology,
doi.org/bdpw).
These effects are associated
with better vascular health,
suggesting that exercise helps
the brain by keeping down blood
pressure and preventing strokes.
But the team’s results showed
that physical activity can only
delay memory loss if a person
begins exercising before the
onset of symptoms. “Once
there’s damage, you can’t really
reverse it,” says Wright.
Why we have really
big noses…
IT’S an evolutionary mystery
that’s literally as plain as the
nose on your face. Why did our
ancestors develop a prominent
protruding nose when most
primates have flat nasal openings?
A new study suggests that our
unusual nose may simply be a byproduct
of other, more important
changes in the structure of our
face as our brains enlarged.
Takeshi Nishimura at Kyoto
University, Japan, and his team
modelled the flow of inhaled air
through the nasal passages of
humans, chimpanzees and
macaques. It turns out that our
noses, unlike those of other
primates, are poor at warming or
cooling air that goes to the lungs
(PLoS Computational Biology, DOI:
10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004807).
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 15

IN BRIEF
For new stories every day, visit newscientist.com/news
E BRUN
Leaded ink opens
up ancient scrolls
LEAD often gets a bad press. But its
discovery in ancient Graeco-Roman
ink could make it easier to read an
early form of publishing – precious
scrolls buried by the eruption of
Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.
Some 800 scrolls, part of the
classical world’s best-surviving
library, have tantalised scholars
since they were unearthed in a
villa in the ancient Roman city of
Herculaneum in 1752. About 200
are in such a delicate state that they
have never been read. Unrolling the
charred scrolls could destroy them,
so people have been X-raying the
bundles in the hopes of decoding
the writing inside. But progress has
been slow – it is difficult to detect
the difference between the letters
and the papyrus they are written on.
Now physicist Vito Mocella of
the Italian National Research Council
and his colleagues have discovered
lead in the ink on two Herculaneum
papyri fragments held in the
Institute of France in Paris. The
presence of lead means that
imaging techniques could be
recalibrated to pick up the metal,
something X-rays excel at (PNAS,
doi.org/bdn5).
“This really opens up the
possibility of being able to read
these scrolls,” says Graham Davis,
at Queen Mary University of London.
“If this is typical of this scroll or other
scrolls, than that is very good news.”
Violent pirouette spun off the moon’s water
BALLET doesn’t suit everyone.
Molten rock flowing beneath the
moon’s crust billions of years ago
shifted its spin axis by about six
degrees. The pirouette could have
cost the moon most of its water.
We saw the first direct evidence
of water on the moon in 2009,
when a deliberately crashed
satellite found hydrogen – a proxy
for water – in a southern crater.
There was more there than at the
actual pole, a little more than five
degrees away, says Matthew
Siegler of the Planetary Science
Institute in Tucson, Arizona.
Fungi may help
woodpeckers drill
IF A red-cockaded woodpecker
wants a home, it does more than
just knock on wood – it takes some
tiny helpers with it. It seems to
carry spores of wood-rotting fungi
to each new hole.
Red-cockaded woodpeckers
live in the pine forests of the
south-eastern US, where they dig
tree cavities to live in. Each family
has cavities at different stages of
construction. It’s no quick bodge
job–aholecantakeyears to craft.
Michelle Jusino of the US
Forest Service Center for Forest
Mycology Research in Wisconsin
and her colleagues have found a
wide range of fungal spores on the
birds, including many that cause
wood decay and are found in
cavities that woodpeckers dig.
To see whether the birds bring
the fungi to the cavities, the team
drilled holes in 60 trees, covering
half with screens the woodpeckers
can’t get through. After 26 months,
accessible holes had fungal
communities that were more
similar to those found in natural
woodpecker cavities than to
inaccessible holes. This suggests
the birds do disperse fungi,
although any benefit to them is
still unproven (Proceedings of the
Royal Society B, doi.org/bdn7).
While scrutinising maps of
the lunar composition, Siegler
noticed that the highest
concentration of hydrogen at the
north pole is also a few degrees
away from the true pole, but in
the opposite direction.
“They are on exact opposite
sides of the moon from each
other. It’s as if you drew a line
through the centre of the moon
from those two points,” he says.
This indicates that the moon’s
polar axis used to follow that line,
but shifted. Based on its direction,
Siegler and his colleagues think
Parasites, mew give me road rage
CATS can make us angry. Scratching
our furniture, waking us up – and
giving us parasites that may cause
explosive rage.
Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite
carried by cats that lives in the brains
of as many as a third of all people
worldwide. Now the parasite has
been linked to a psychiatric condition
involving disproportionate outbursts
of aggression, like road rage.
Emil Coccaro at the University of
Chicago and his colleagues compared
110 people with intermittent
explosive disorder (IED) with people
who have no psychiatric diagnosis.
the shift was caused when lava
flowing up from the lunar interior
formed the Procellarum region.
The volcanism would have
changed the distribution of the
moon’s mass, spinning it around
(Nature, doi.org/bdn9).
That pirouette could have cost
the moon much of its water. When
the poles shifted, frozen water
would have been exposed to the
sun and evaporated. That helps to
explain why the moon is so dry,
and suggests that much of the
lunar water is leftover from early
in its life.
They found that people with IED
were more than twice as likely to
test positive for exposure to T. gondii.
In both groups, those who tested
positive tended to rank more highly
in tests for aggression (Journal of
Clinical Psychiatry, doi.org/bdpq).
Coccaro thinks the parasite may
be altering neurotransmitters in
the brain. However, the correlation
doesn’t necessarily mean that
T. gondii is causing the explosive
rage. Aggressive people may be
less likely to wash their hands,
making them more likely to catch
the parasite, for example.
NATALIE SHUTTLEWORTH/GETTY
16 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

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TECHNOLOGY
Getdeepinthegame
After years of hype, the moment is finally here. Douglas Heaven introduces
the games that will kick-start the VR revolution
CHESNOT/GETTY
WHEN a small company called
Oculus announced that it was
building a virtual reality headset
in 2012, it sent expectations
soaring. The hope was for a device
that might finally deliver on
the promise of VR – which had
become the butt of jokes after a
run of false starts in the 1980s and
90s. The moment of truth will
arrive this week, when the Oculus
Rift launches – along with a few
dozen games that aim to kick-start
the VR gaming revolution.
The line-up includes games that
let you conquer Everest, repair an
orbiting space station and even
take part in a ballet. One, Job
Simulator, even puts you in a
world where robots have replaced
human workers and simulations
are the only way to experience a
life of nine-to-five employment.
The Rift, which launches on
28 March, will be joined on 5 April
by the Vive, made by HTC and
Valve. Sony’s Playstation VR
system is due in October. And
earlier this month, Canadian
start-up Sulon revealed yet another
rival headset,coming this Spring.
Few technologies have been so
hotly anticipated. But what will
people make of them? The success
of VR rests on the types of
experiences it will offer. Many
are versions of existing games
that have been adapted to VR.
For example, the view from your
cockpit when travelling between
stars in Elite Dangerous will now
be more overwhelming than ever.
But it is the games developed
specifically for VR that could
change the way we play. As well as
the headset, VR games often make
use of controllers that track your
movements. These let you treat
a controller as a gun – pointing it
to aim as you would a real one – or
as a rope that you have to grip to
climb a rock face, or a basketball
you have to slam dunk. Motion
controllers themselves are not
new, but their greater sensitivity
combined with the full
immersion of a headset that
covers your eyes and ears leads
to extremely vivid experiences.
It sounds obvious, but what
virtual reality lets us do is make
the virtual a reality, says VR
developer Xárene Eskandar at the
University of California, Santa
Barbara. “You are present more
than with any other medium.
It has your full attention.”
But a big challenge facing the VR
“We’re actually a bit thrilled
that The Brookhaven
Experiment might be too
scary for some players”
industry is describing what that is
like to those who have not tried it.
“It is almost impossible to convey
the experience through any
medium other than VR,” says Alex
Knoll, co-founder of game studio
Stress Level Zero, based in LA.
It’s like trying to sell a colour TV
in a world where only black and
white TVs exist, says Steve Bowler
at Phosphor Games in Chicago,
which has made VR horror game
The Brookhaven Experiment.
“We have to get you in the virtual
world with the headset on your
face before you believe us that
it’s amazing.”
Game makers have had to
overcome more practical issues
too. One is how to give players a
sense of freedom and movement
when playing in their living room.
Tripping over furniture and
bumping into walls in one reality
while you are saving the world – or
flipping burgers – in another can
quickly break the spell. A
wireframe showing where the
edges of a room are can be
superimposed over the virtual
world to stop you hurting
yourself. But most games also give
you reasons not to move around
too much. For example, in Stress
Level Zero’s Hover Junkers, a game
–Is it my turn yet?– where you fight on hovercraft,
18 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology
players are advised to choose a
ship that is roughly the same size
as the room they’re playing in.
In other games, players stand in
one spot and move around in the
game by teleporting, for example.
This also partly addresses the
problem of motion sickness that
many people experienced with
VR software. Games have several
other tricks to deal with this too.
In Hover Junkers, the ships hover
so there is very little bouncing,
creating less conflict between
what you see in the virtual world
and what you feel in the real one.
The ships also do not turn unless
the player twists their body.
Even standing still, there is a lot
of opportunity for visceral action.
In The Brookhaven Experiment
players stand their ground against
waves of monsters. Because the
experience is so realistic, players
reflexively step backwards when
confronted, turn away and shield
their face when hit, or lash out
with their hands in defence.
A handful of players have
stopped playing because it is too
frightening. For Bowler this is a
sign of success. “We’re actually a
bit thrilled that The Brookhaven
Experiment might be too scary for
some players.”
Although nascent, the potential
of consumer VR is clear. The
best experiences do not simply
try to adapt the conventions
of screen-based media, says
Eskandar. Using VR just to display
360° video is pointless, she says.
“It’s just a flat screen wrapped
around your head.”
Eskandar is developing a
VR puzzle game called The
Clocksmith’s Labyrinth. She
thinks that by separating us from
the physical constraints of one
reality, VR experiences could
ultimately give us fresh ways of
conceptualising things.
“I’m curious to see how humans
will evolve with this medium,” says
Eskandar. “My dream is that 20 to
30 years down the road, one of the
kids who has played these games
can solve a cosmological puzzle
that finds the multiverse.” ■
THE BROOKHAVEN EXPERIMENT
A horror game in which you must survive an
onslaught from hordes of monsters. Danger
approaches from all sides, so you have to keep
looking over your shoulder. Armed with a pistol
and a limited supply of bullets, every shot counts.
But as the tension mounts, your aim waivers.
Unlike most games, you fire with a motion
controller held like a gun, rather than a mouse or
joystick. The experience is realistic enough that
the developers say they can tell which players
know how to use a real gun.
JOB SIMULATOR
Office job getting you down? Now you can
escape into a simulation of a simulation of a
different one. In this game, all jobs have been
taken by robots. To keep themselves amused,
humans have developed simulations of what
it was like to be an employee in the good old
days – cooking in a restaurant kitchen, sitting at
a supermarket checkout, keeping busy in an office
cubicle. Largely an excuse to have fun interacting
with virtual versions of everyday objects, the
game is a lot more enjoyable than it sounds.
THE CLIMB
A hundred metres up, the boats in the beautiful
bay look like toys. Your eyes are fixed on the next
ledge, however. You cling to the rock face by
squeezing the triggers on two motion controllers
held in each hand, and move to the next hand-hold
by looking in its direction and reaching for it. As you
climb, you also have to stop to reapply chalk as your
character’s hands get sweaty. Sometimes the only
way to proceed is to leap, which is guaranteed to
get the heart pumping. Players compete for fastest
ascents or can watch others tackle tricky climbs.
TILT BRUSH
When you’re done with role-playing and just feel
like doodling, this game lets you sketch lines in the
air around you. You can then walk around and view
your creations from different angles. The extra
dimension gives you lots of new ways to interact
with them – you could draw a door and walk through
it, for example. You create your pictures by using
the motion controller as a paintbrush and you can
then share them online. The big bold strokes make
players look like Jackson Pollock. Indeed, we may
soon see the first VR art gallery.
GOOGLE CRYTEK OWLCHEMY LABS PHOSPHOR GAMES STUDIO LLC
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 19

TECHNOLOGY
ONE PER CENT
Fieldnotes Factory 2050
Wait,I’llreconfigure
Jacob Aron crosses the frontier into the factory of the future
BOND BRYAN
PLANES, trains, automobiles? Not
quite yet: Factory 2050 in Sheffield,
UK, isn’t building anything you can buy.
Instead, the brains behind the project
are rethinking the manufacturing
process itself, aiming to change how
we make everything from airplanes to
nuclear power plants.
Inside the factory, things are looking
a little unfinished. It opened in January,
and the team from the University of
Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing
Research Centre (AMRC) are still
moving in. The place is sparkling clean,
and smells like a newly furnished IKEA,
but it’s gearing up to change the way
whole industries work by applying
virtual reality, robotics and bitcoin’s
blockchain.
A gaggle of orange robot arms
catches my eye. Built by German firm
KUKA for car manufacturing, these
bots are sloppy when it comes to
aerospace. Making planes is so
complex that they need to be
assembled with 20 times more
accuracy than these arms can handle.
Steve Bowles, an engineer on the
project, is working to fix this. Laser
tracking can ensure the robots deposit
an exact amount of adhesive between
two parts of a wing, for instance.
Too much or too little could lead to a
catastrophic failure when the plane
takes off.
Past the orange arms is the KUKA
omniMove, a robot the size of a small,
squashed car. Instead of tyres, each of
its eight wheels is covered in diagonal
rollers that let the bot move in any
direction without turning. UK
construction firm Laing O’Rourke has
tasked AMRC with using the
omniMove to study the pouring and
moving of concrete floors. The plan is
for the robots to churn out modular
parts for buildings and assemble them
on location.
AMRC foresees a future in which
robots take on the drudgery of
–Give me a minute, I’m tooling up–
manufacturing, leaving humans to
plan and formulate strategies for
guiding the machines. “You can have
the humans concentrating on
processes that require dexterous
thoughts and hands,” says Bowles.
“The idea is to assist the worker.”
This automated factory will
generate huge volumes of data.
By linking together all the cameras,
lasers and other sensors the team can
create a digital twin of the building
“The factory will physically
rearrange itself to create
thebestproductionline
for the job”
that will monitor every manufacturing
process and perhaps individual
components. This will help AMRC
retool on the fly, digitally swapping out
parts of the production line to model
changes in the hunt for efficiency.
Once an automated system has
determined the best set of tools,
the factory can physically rearrange
itself to create the best production
line for the job.
AMRC has also recently become
interested in the blockchain, the
unfalsifiable ledger technology
behind the bitcoin virtual currency.
It would track and certify the path
of raw materials all the way to the
finished product, ensuring provenance
and quality. “At every interaction,
you would capture data around a
given material or component,”
says AMRC chief technical officer
Sam Turner.
Factory 2050 feels like a toy shop,
but the researchers aren’t just
tinkering. The goal is to get the ideas
straight into industrial use, rather than
letting them languish in the lab. “We’re
looking at how to make manufacturing
processes more efficient, more safe
and more reliable,” says Bowles. ■
Robot ripper
Last week, Apple unveiled Liam,
a robot built to rip apart old phones
and pull out anything that can be
recycled. Made up of 29 robotic
arms, Liam starts by pulling off the
screen, before moving on to the
guts – battery, processor and even
screws. At full clip, it takes apart a
phone every 11 seconds. There is
currently only one Liam, in
California, but Apple is building
another in Europe.
“So fricken excited
to meet you … like
humans seem so
awesome”
Tay greets the world (23 March).
Within hours, the Microsoft chatbot
had been tricked into spewing racist
comments on Twitter
Global face-off
How many people look just like
you? FaceTopo’s software could let
you find out by comparing your
face with thousands of others
around the world. After uploading
a series of selfies, an app identifies
key facial features and uses them
to find lookalikes from around the
world, or show you how similar
your face is to those of family
members in previous generations.
Once FaceTopo has collected
enough data, its developers hope
to study the degree of variation
across all human faces.
APPLE
20 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

Entries for $250,000
Ryman Prize now open
The Ryman Prize is a unique international
award aimed at encouraging the best
and the brightest thinkers in the world to
focus on ways to improve the health of
older people.
The world’s ageing population means
that in some parts of the globe –
including most of the Western world –
the population aged 75+ is set to triple
in the next 30 years.
In order to stimulate fresh efforts in
the field, the Ryman Foundation is
offering a NZ$250,000 (US$165,000)
annual prize for the world’s best
discovery, development, advance or
achievement that enhances quality of
life for older people.
The inaugural Ryman Prize was won by
Gabi Hollows for her pioneering work
to provide affordable eye surgery for
people in developing countries.
The Hollows Foundation has restored
sight to more than 1 million people
– an amazing achievement that has
transformed lives.
If you have a great idea, or have
achieved something remarkable like
Gabi, we’d love to hear from you!
Go to www.rymanprize.com for more information
Gabi Hollows and Nobel Laureate Dr Erwin Neher at the presentation of the inaugural Ryman Prize
www.rymanprize.com

APERTURE
22 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

Monstrous beauty
HARD to believe that something so beautiful can
have such a devastating effect. This is what the
infamous Zika virus looks like – probably.
Zika, now sweeping the Americas, was
declared a global health emergency earlier this
year because of the suspected link between the
virus and babies born with microencephaly.
Ivan Konstantinov from Visual Science and his
team used their knowledge of related viruses,
such as dengue, West Nile and yellow fever, to
create an image of a Zika particle. “We applied
the same techniques used in research and drug
development to predict what it looks like,”
says Konstantinov.
Zika is part of the flavivirus family so its
“virions” – infectious particles – are probably
around 50 nanometres, less than half the size of
HIV and flu. Different proteins are coloured blue,
green and grey. In the top right image we can see
a lipid membrane, including a protein, and in the
picture below it is the virus’s RNA genome.
Although the surface of the virus closely
resembles dengue, says Konstantinov, it could
work very differently. “It doesn’t mean that it
behaves the same way in an infected organism.”
Aside from microencephaly, Zika is implicated
in other kinds of fetal damage, as well as in
Guillain-Barré syndrome, which can cause
paralysis.
The team hopes to improve their model once
they know how the virus’s genome organises
itself inside the cell. Sandrine Ceurstemont
Photographer
© Visual Science, 2016
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 23

OPINION
Critical moment
Time for a serious rethink of the world’s biggest nuclear
power project, says Paul Ekins
FEW energy projects have been as
racked with doubt as the nuclear
power station due to be built at
Hinkley Point in Somerset, UK.
Fresh uncertainty followed the
resignation of the chief finance
director of EDF, the largely stateowned
French company that
would construct the plant, fearing
EDF’s share of the £18 billion cost
could ruin it.
The backdrop is a UK
government desperate for the
plug not to be pulled. It cites
energy security, jobs and cost of
power. Nuclear plants can supply
zero-carbon power continuously,
and Hinkley will generate 7 per
cent of current UK electricity
demand for 60 years, at a rate
that is now cheaper than that of
power from offshore wind. Some
25,000 jobs would be created.
But how essential is Hinkley?
That depends on electricity
demand in decades to come,
Bridging the gulf
More US-Cuba scientific collaboration will
help keep the peace, says Michael Clegg
A HISTORIC visit to Cuba by
Barack Obama – the first such
gesture by a US president for
88 years – reinforces the thaw in
relations between the nations.
It’s no surprise that Obama’s
wish list included better scientific
cooperation. He knows that this
has long been a powerful means
of bridge building. For instance,
the US National Academy of
Sciences runs workshops with
scientists from Iran, and both
governments seem to value this
neutral channel of engagement.
Similar links have been forged
with China, India and Russia – and
earlier with the Soviet Union.
Science provides a context for
dialogue when political tensions
hinder other communication.
What’s more, Cuba has strong
capabilities in fields including
biotechnology, oceanography,
biodiversity, public health and
disaster management. Its
education system achieved nearly
100 per cent literacy by the 1970s
and its higher education and
research sectors are impressive
for a nation of just over 11 million.
Obama had technology-based
entrepreneurism and expanded
access to the internet on his wish
“One idea has suggested
using the US base at
Guantanamo Bay for
biodiversity conservation”
mainly dictated by how efficiently
electricity is used and to what
extent it replaces transport fuels
and natural gas for heating.
UK Energy Research Centre
modelling suggested that demand
in 2050 could be 30 per cent
higher than in 2015, with greater
nuclear capacity playing an
important role combined with
renewables and coal plus biofuels
backed by carbon capture and
storage (CCS). But the ground has
shifted. UK CCS prospects have
dimmed and the cost of electricity
from renewables has fallen.
By 2025, power from offshore
wind is set to be cheaper than that
from Hinkley. And being able to
store a lot of electricity to smooth
out intermittent supply from
renewables is looking more likely.
Lots of renewables, together
with storage and a smart grid
to better match generation to
demand, could render obsolete
list for Cuba, along with the chance
to work with Cuban biotech
efforts, in particular trials for
new vaccines for lung cancer and
other human and animal diseases.
Shared environmental
challenges, such as climateinduced
sea level rise, preparing
for hurricanes, and preserving
marine resources and biodiversity
suggest a cooperative approach.
In this context, one visionary idea
from the research community
proposed using the US naval base
at Guantanamo Bay as a dedicated
area for biodiversity conservation
(Science, doi.org/bdks).
The path ahead has obstacles,
not least opposition from some
24 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

For more opinion articles, visit newscientist.com/opinion
the whole concept of a continuous
supply of “baseload power”, which
nuclear provides. Under this
scenario, the mid-2020s, when
Hinkley would come online, could
see the UK locked into a 35-year
commitment to an inflexible and
expensive form of electricity illsuited
to a new energy landscape.
Alternatively, if Hinkley can be
built without bankrupting EDF,
deliver power at a predictable cost
for 60 years, and if a more flexible
grid proves unfeasible, then the
enthusiasm may prove justified.
On balance, though, the cost
looks too high, and the current
hiatus provides a chance to back
off from Hinkley and rekindle
investment in renewables, while
building sufficient gas plants to
act as back up in case mass storage
of electricity fails to materialise.
Ultimately, if EDF does pull
out of Hinkley, the government
will have to come back to
renewables or CCS in a big way, or
recognise that its carbon targets
are a lost cause.
The juggling act of getting
secure, low-carbon power at the
lowest cost is not called the energy
policy “trilemma” for nothing. ■
Paul Ekins is professor of resources
and environmental policy at University
College London, and deputy director
of the UK Energy Research Centre
Republicans hoping to contest
the US presidential election.
There are also US laws, such as
an economic embargo, that still
limit engagement, and changing
these will require congressional
action – unlikely in the short term.
Despite this, collaborative
research offers a valuable path
to deeper ties. There are many
opportunities for cooperation and
each such initiative will amplify
and encourage a new future
between these two nations. ■
Michael Clegg is co-chair of the Inter
American Network of Academies of
Science and emeritus professor of
biology at University of California, Irvine
FABRIZIO BENSCH / REUTERS
INSIGHT Air pollution
We need to be angrier
about our toxic air
Michael Le Page
I WORRY about what working at New
Scientist is doing to my health. Not
because of the job itself, but because
our office is located in one of the many
parts of London where air pollution
exceeds the set limits. My colleagues
and I breathe in a lot more nitrogen
dioxide than is good for us. And if you
live or work near to a busy road, or
travel on them, you probably do too.
Rich countries like the UK have
made a lot of progress when it comes
to air pollution. We’ve gotten rid of
the soot from industry that plagues
countries like China and India, and
more insidious threats such as lead
from petrol. But we do have a big
problem with nitrogen dioxide from
traffic fumes. London’s Oxford Street
has the highest recorded levels of
nitrogen dioxide in the world.
According to a European Union
directive that came into force in 2010,
nitrogen dioxide levels should average
less than 40 micrograms per cubic
metre a year and the hourly average
shouldn’t exceed 200 micrograms on
more than 18 occasions in a year.
Parts of London sometimes breach
this limit more than 18 times a week.
That’s outrageous, yet there has
been little outcry. ClientEarth, a group
of activist lawyers, is trying to change
that. It sued the UK government to
force it to take action. The supreme
court ruled in its favour last year.
That meant the government had to
come up with a new plan for reducing
nitrogen dioxide. But that plan wasn’t
much better than the old one: London
would continue to breach the limits
until at least 2025, for example. So
last week ClientEarth announced it
“Nitrogen dioxide is
invisible. The lack of actual
bodies makes it hard to
mobilise public opinion”
was again taking legal action to
force the government to do better.
The trouble is nitrogen dioxide is
an invisible killer. A major report out
last month concluded that air pollution
causes around 40,000 deaths a year
in the UK, of which nearly half are due
to nitrogen dioxide.
However, it isn’t possible to point
to any one death and say that person
was killed by nitrogen dioxide. Rather,
–A big dose of nitrogen dioxide–
some people are becoming ill and
dying sooner than they should have
done. “What we are talking about is a
shortening of life,” says Ian Mudway
of King’s College London. The headline
figure of 40,000 deaths is a statistical
way of representing this toll.
The lack of actual bodies makes it
hard to mobilise public opinion. And
without an angry electorate, getting
the government to take action is
going to be an uphill struggle.
Air pollution does seem to be
moving up the agenda thanks to the
efforts of ClientEarth and others. It
has become an issue in the mayoral
election for London and a recent
YouGov poll on behalf of ClientEarth
found that air pollution is the number
one health concern for Londoners.
Nitrogen dioxide pollution is an
issue in many other traffic-clogged
cities around the world too, but the
problem is particularly bad in Europe
because of efforts to reduce carbon
emissions by encouraging people to
buy diesel cars. Diesel vehicles emit
lots of nitrogen dioxide and – as the
Volkswagen scandal made clear – the
systems meant to mop this up don’t
work nearly as well as claimed.
In the short term we need to get the
most polluting vehicles off the road.
And in the long term, we need to switch
to hybrid or electric vehicles. If we
power these with renewable energy,
we can reduce carbon emissions at the
same time – a win-win situation. But it
won’t happen unless we demand it. ■
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 25

ASTELLAS INNOVATION DEBATE
Supported by New Scientist
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BEN PAGE
Our Healthcare:
Situation critical?
Ageing populations, expanding waistlines and stricter
budgets are making the future uncertain for healthcare
systems. How should they prepare, ask a panel of experts
at the Astellas Innovation Debate in London
When Trish Greenhalgh
broke a few bones in an
unfortunate accident, she
went to her local accident and
emergency department. What she
wasn’t expecting was a 6 hour wait
on a hospital trolley to get the
treatment she needed. As professor
of primary care health sciences at
the University of Oxford, she is no
stranger to the trials and tribulations
of the National Health Service but
cites her experience as an example
of a service undergoing a crisis.
For her, the reasons for the delay
are clear. “GPs are so stressed that
they are taking time off, so patients
go to accident and emergency
instead,” she told an expert panel
and an audience of invited guests
Trish Greenhalgh says GP morale is low
at the Astellas Innovation Debate
2016 at the Royal Institution in
London in February. “The whole
system is at breaking point.”
So what needs to be done? To
address this question, the Astellas
Innovation Debate drew together
a wide range of healthcare experts
to share their ideas.
Norman Lamb, health
spokesperson for the Liberal
Democrats and a former minister
of health in the UK, painted a stark
picture. “I feel we are sleepwalking
“While the UK spends
£1 in every £12 on
health, the US spends
$1 in every $6”
towards a crash in the healthcare
system in this country,” he said in
his keynote speech.
But other health systems face
similar challenges. “Across the
developed world, costs are rising
at about 4 per cent a year, and they
have done throughout the postwar
period,” he said.
The reasons are many. For a
start, we are living longer and with
higher levels of chronic disease.
“The number of people with three
or more chronic conditions is
projected to rise by 50 per cent by
2019,” he said.
SQUEEZED BUDGETS
All this is set against a backdrop
of ever tighter budgets, particularly
in the UK, where the NHS is
expected to have a funding deficit
of £30 billion by 2020. Lamb says
that only five OECD countries
spend less per capita on health
than the UK; all of them former
Soviet bloc countries in Eastern
Europe. “In terms of our spending
on health, we’re way behind
countries like Germany, France,
the Netherlands and so on.”
But simply spending more
money is not the answer, says
Lamb. Some healthcare systems
26 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

Clockwise from top left: the healthcare
issues captured in cartoon form; guests
mingle at the Royal Institution; panellists
David Nicholson and Ab Klink; Katherine
Murphy from the Patients Association
questions the panel; the debate
involved a wide range of healthcare
experts; panellists Trish Greenhalgh
and Martin Gaynor
are more efficient than others.
The world’s biggest healthcare
spender is the US. While the UK
spends about £1 in every £12 on
health, the US spends $1 in every
$6 – almost a fifth of the US
economy. But Martin Gaynor,
professor of economics and health
policy at Carnegie Melon University
in Pittsburgh, says this money isn’t
always well spent.
He points to the UK National
Institute for Health and Care
Excellence (NICE) which takes an
Norman Lamb, former UK minister of
health, painted a stark picture
“We are sleepwalking
towards a crash in the
healthcare system in
this country”
evidence-based approach to
healthcare value. “The US has no
equivalent of NICE that
distinguishes true value,” he says.
“The UK and Europe do a much
better job of that.”
The Dutch healthcare system is
a good example. In the 1990s, it
had long waiting times that various
specialists said could only be cut
by throwing money at the problem.
That turned out not to work, says
Ab Klink, a former Dutch minister of
health. There was little incentive to
reduce waiting times and hospitals
even found they could use long
ones to attract extra government
funding. So the Dutch turned to a
system where health insurance is
mandatory and insurers compete
with one another. This immediately
increased productivity and reduced
waiting lists.
But solving one dilemma created
another. “The problem now is that
cutting costs leads to specialists
spending less time with patients
and referring them to other
specialists instead,” says Klink.
The truth is that no healthcare
system is perfect, says David
Nicholson, who was chief executive
of NHS England between 2011 and
2014. He believes that the UK
system has specific problems, for
example in dealing with mental
health issues and in managing its
workforce. This last issue is likely to
grow as emerging countries start to
compete for UK staff.
OVERSEAS THREAT
Nicholson points out that India
wants to recruit another 1 million
doctors and China needs 3 million
more. If just a tiny fraction of these
come from the UK, that will have a
big impact. “It’s going to really hit
us,” he says.
But the NHS is still able to punch
above its weight, at least for now.
“We can probably muddle through
for another year or so,” he says.
Greenhalgh is more worried. “I
have been working as a doctor in
the NHS for 33 years and have
never seen morale so low.” But, she
says, “you can’t just press a button
and change the system, because of
legacy”. Even if you could, there are
some things that shouldn’t change.
“Universal coverage is something
we must maintain,” she says.
Audience member Katherine
Murphy agrees. As chief executive
of the Patients Association, she
believes patient needs are crucial
but easily overlooked in the debate
about the future of healthcare. “We
need to ask patients what they
want,” she says. But the absence
of information available to
patients about their treatments,
possible outcomes, or the clinicians
treating them, makes it hard for
patients to make informed choices,
she says.
One potential solution is
technology. Genetic tests, and the
personalised treatments they allow,
are widely believed to be on the
verge of revolutionising healthcare.
But the NHS hasn’t always been
able to capitalise on new ideas
quickly, says John Burn, professor
of clinical genetics at Newcastle
University and a founder of a
company that makes gene chips.
“It has been challenging to get gene
chip technology into the NHS. The
problem is inertia in the system.”
Whatever the solution, it won’t be
easy to implement. For the
foreseeable future, problems like
Greenhalgh’s 6-hour wait for
treatment may be only the tip of
the iceberg. ■
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 27

OPINION INTERVIEW
Robot rescue?
We’re ready to roll
From lifeguards to reconnaissance drones, robots are already helping
save lives. It’s time they took their place in the rescuer’s toolbox,
argues Robin Murphy
What motivated you to get into rescue robotics?
The Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. At the
time, robots were being made very small and
agile, but rescue robots were golf-cart-sized
devices or things developed for the nuclear
industry that weighed tonnes. They could only
go on top of the rubble, not into it. But there
might be people trapped deep inside that you
could save if you could just get to them within
48 hours. Small robots, the size of a suitcase or
lunch box, would clearly have been of benefit.
Two decades on, what’s your approach?
At the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and
Rescue, our Roboticists Without Borders
programme finds robot-makers willing to
donate their robots and expertise to us. We
essentially audition the robots, large or small,
for a spot on our team. We develop potential
uses for the machines we select, making them
smarter and adaptable for a variety of disaster
scenarios. Right now we have about 20 types of
ground, air and sea robots, many at my lab in
storage cases, ready for deployment when
something bad happens.
Have you deployed a rescue robot recently?
Yes. When we heard about refugees drowning
off the coast of Greece we called Tony
Mulligan, CEO of a company called
Hydronalix, which makes remote-controlled
lifeguarding marine robots called EMILYs. He
said, “I will take two experts and two EMILYs
to Greece.” I met him out there in January.
He donated the robots, one to the Hellenic
Coast Guard and one to the Hellenic Red Cross.
Why is it dangerous for refugees to land boats
on Greek shores?
They have bad motors and bad boats that are
overloaded, and the wind conditions in that
channel can suddenly change. The shores are
also very rocky. If you find a good beach, great,
but if you hit a bad stretch of shore, there’s no
way to get off the boat or for anyone to come
and rescue you from the rocks, so you are
trapped. Roughly 600 people died last year.
How does a marine robot help?
One way is to get the refugee boats to follow
an EMILY to a better shore. These robots have
cameras and two-way radios to allow rescue
boats to communicate with the people in peril.
The robot can also deploy a flotation device if
the boat goes down. Finally, if a boat gets stuck
on a rocky piece of coast, EMILY can run a line
out so they can clip it in tight around their
boat and let one of the bigger boats pull them
back out to safety – we saw that a lot. In short,
we are preventing drownings.
Are you working on any developments to these
lifesaving robots?
Yes, more automation. EMILYs are remotecontrolled,
but what we would like to be able
to do is have a lifeguard look at the video feed
from EMILY’s onboard camera and say, “Over
there, that’s the cluster of people I want you
to assist”, just by circling on the screen.
What other rescue situations have you
attended with robots?
We helped after mudslides engulfed a rural
community in Oso, Washington, killing more
than 40 people in 2014. In one day we went
out and flew a reconnaissance drone over
the mudslides to get high-resolution images
from angles that crewed helicopters and
satellites could not. We flew above the area for
48 minutes and processed the data on a laptop
PROFILE
Robin Murphy is director
of the Centre for Robot-
Assisted Search and
Rescue at Texas A&M
University in College
Station, where she is
Raytheon professor of
computer science and
engineering
Standing by:
Murphy and an
iRobot ground vehicle
while we were driving back to the incident
command centre. We were able to give them
a high-resolution 3D representation of the
entire area fast. As a result, it became obvious
to the hydrologist where the river had shifted
to, where the lowest points were and where
was the best place to create a flood-bypass
channel to prevent further catastrophe.
What technological advancements with rescue
robots are you most anticipating?
So far everything’s been focused on what
robots see, but what they feel is important to
us as well, so I’m looking forward to robots
with a sense of touch. It’s really hard to clean
the dirt off a trapped survivor in order to start
using infrared techniques to see their blood
28 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

For more opinion articles, visit newscientist.com/opinion
Photographed for New Scientist by Jeff Wilson
vessels and check their pulse. And if I touch
them I need haptic feedback so I don’t hurt
or scare the bejeezus out of them.
And the newer types of mobility are exciting
too, particularly snake-like robots that are able
to burrow into rubble, for example. Big robots
can only access big spaces, so smaller,
burrowing robots are a big deal.
Have your robots saved a life?
No saved life has been directly attributed to
one of our robots, but that would be like saying
a fire truck or a search camera has saved
someone’s life. They are important tools of the
teams that saved lives, but at the end of the
day it’s the emergency responders who do it.
They are the heroes.
What’s holding back the rise of the rescue bots?
Right now the barriers tend to be lack of
accurate knowledge about what they can do.
That’s why we want them used as much as
possible – seeing is believing if you want
people to adopt this technology. The second
thing is regulations on what government
agencies can spend money on.
Aren’t these machines costly?
Most of our robots cost less than a fire truck;
less than the fire chief’s SUV. They certainly
don’t cost millions of dollars – even if you
factor in training people to use them and
other associated costs. The important thing
is, if you reduce the physical recovery time
of a disaster by just a few days you can take
years off of the economic recovery time.
That’s what robots allow you to do.
You have said it’s unethical not to use rescue
robots – why?
We have now reached the point at which these
technologies are proven. Not every robot is
perfect and not every robot is ready, but in
general these are hardened technologies that
have been used in 50 disasters in 15 countries
since 2001. It’s not like we suddenly came up
with something out of nowhere. It was the
same scenario with vaccines – at some point
you just have to pony up the money and
commit to it. ■
Interview by Chris Baraniuk
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 29

COVER STORY
SMASH
AND GRAB
The Milky Way’s dwarf satellites were violently
acquired – and that spells trouble for established
ideas of gravity, says Stuart Clark
THE end of the Milky Way is already
scheduled, and will be marked with
fireworks. Some 4 billion years from
now, the night skies will be lit by the glow of
hundreds of billions of stars as the nearby
Andromeda galaxy bears down on us. The
two celestial giants will become one and stars,
planets and gas clouds will be hurled into
intergalactic space by titanic gravitational
forces. Surviving stars and planets will be
pitched into a jumbled cloud flaring up with
new stars – floating into a long future not
in the Milky Way, nor Andromeda, but a
monstrous “Milkomeda” galaxy.
It’s a well-established picture of our galaxy’s
cataclysmic future. More controversially,
it might also be a vision of its past.
Observations indicate that the eviscerated
remains of a past encounter between two
celestial giants encircle our galaxy’s
neighbourhood. Forbidden alignments of
satellite galaxies, globular clusters and
streams of stars trailing in our galactic wake
all hint that our local cosmic history needs
a rewrite. And not only that: to explain what
our telescopes are telling us, we may need to
rethink that most mysterious of substances,
dark matter – and perhaps our entire
conception of how gravity works, too.
Like many big problems, this one started
out small: in a strange configuration of tiny
dwarf galaxies surrounding the Milky Way.
In 2012, astronomer Marcel Pawlowski, then
of the University of Bonn in Germany, dubbed
it the “vast polar structure”. This was for the
way the dwarfs line up in a ring that circles the
galaxy at right angles to the main disc of stars,
which contains our sun and everything else.
But he was by no means the first to see it.
That was Donald Lyndon-Bell of the University
of Cambridge, who in 1976 pointed out that
the satellite galaxies surrounding the Milky
Way are not scattered randomly, but look as if
something has corralled them into a distinct
alignment. “They thought it could be the
break-up of a larger galaxy, making it some
form of debris stream,” says Pawlowski,
“There was an open discussion at the time,
but then the topic became unpopular.”
The thing that made it unpopular was
the rise of dark matter. Dark matter became
30 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

TATIANA PLAKHOVA
“THE ALIGNMENT IS
EXACTLYWHATYOU
WOULDEXPECTIF
THE TWO GALAXIES
HAD INTERACTED
IN THE PAST”
a fixture in the 1970s to explain a glaring
discrepancy between our standard
cosmological models, rooted in the
picture of gravity teased out by Newton and
Einstein, and observations of reality. When
astronomers measured the speed at which
distant galaxies were rotating, they found
these celestial bodies to be whirling round so
fast they would fly apart if they relied only on
visible matter’s gravity to hold them together.
This frenzied rotation could be explained if
there were more to the galaxies than met the
eye – if most of their matter were not made of
conventional atoms, but of particles that did
not interact with light and so were invisible.
Dark matter fitted ideas being floated by
physicists studying the universe’s
rambunctious early years, before stars and
galaxies formed. In this searing environment,
a panoply of new particles would have popped
up to carry forces and energy. As the universe
expanded and its temperature dropped,
these particles would have lost their potency
and become an inert, invisible soup.
No one has ever detected or fabricated so
much as a single particle of dark matter, yet
its popularity has grown and grown. Our
current standard model of cosmology has it
outweighing normal matter by five to one.
Existing in such quantities, dark matter
not only explains galactic rotation, but also
seems to be just the thing to allow galaxies
such as the Milky Way to form. Tiny
irregularities in the initial density of dark >
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 31

matter caused pockets of the stuff, unimpeded
by interactions with anything else, to begin to
collapse under their own weight. This pulled
in normal matter, which collapsed down into
flat, spinning discs of matter – galaxies.
Simulations of this reproduce the observed
form of galaxies like the Milky Way perfectly.
Hot and cold spots we see in the cosmic
microwave background, light sent pinging
around the cosmos when it was just
380,000 years old, are interpreted as
indicating the seeds of this process. And so we
believe that galaxies today are surrounded by
a cosseting “halo” of dark matter that
generates gravity and keeps everything
together.
Those same simulations show how, as dark
matter collapses to form a galaxy halo, parts
of it fragment, trapping in-falling normal
matter and giving rise to a population of
dwarf galaxies randomly scattered around
the larger parent galaxy. So it is a bit of a
problem that the Milky Way’s dwarf satellites
are by no means randomly scattered.
The huge success of the dark matter model
meant most astronomers were content to
turn a blind eye to this small embarrassment:
the thought was we had simply not yet seen
all the Milky Way’s accompanying dwarfs. But
in 2005, Pavel Kroupa, also at the University
of Bonn, reanalysed the satellite galaxy data
and confirmed the striking mismatch with
dark matter theory.
Pawlowski, Kroupa’s doctoral student, then
went further. He studied the alignment of other
objects in the halo of the Milky Way – spherical
collections of stars much smaller than dwarf
galaxies known as globular clusters, and long
wispy trails of stars thought to form when
dwarf galaxies break up. He found them
marshalled just like the dwarf galaxies.
To explain it all, Pawlowski channelled
Lyndon-Bell’s original suggestion that it
could be the debris of an intergalactic collision
and looked to see what the fallout of such a
collision might be. He investigated whether
dwarf galaxies could indeed form from the
stuff left behind when two galaxies interacted.
Astronomers see quite a few such galactic
dances throughout the universe throwing
out huge tails of stars and gas into space.
Pawlowski’s simulations confirmed that the
Milky Way’s dwarf galaxies could indeed form
in their observed positions following such an
encounter (see “When galaxies collide”, left).
But what was it that danced with us?
There was no obvious candidate until 2013,
when Rodrigo Ibata of the Observatory of
Strasbourg in France and his colleagues
When galaxies collide
An earlier encounter between two galaxies could be
responsible for the strange ring of dwarf galaxies
around the Milky Way
The close encounter of two
galaxies rips off huge tails of gas
These tails coalesce to form dwarf galaxies
in a ring at right angles to the main disc
published observations that showed a similar
polar structure of dwarf galaxies exists around
Andromeda, our nearest galactic neighbour
some 2.5 million light years away. The dwarfs
above the plane of Andromeda are moving
away from us, while those at the bottom are
heading towards us – convincing evidence
that the disc is not a chance alignment, but
a coherent, rotating structure. Andromeda’s
satellite disc is also rotating in the same sense
as ours, and pointing at the Milky Way, albeit
with a slight misalignment of about 35 degrees
from our galaxy’s polar structure. It is all
exactly what you would expect if the two
galaxies had interacted in the past.
Except they couldn’t have done. Even
counting their presumed dark matter haloes,
Andromeda and the Milky Way simply don’t
have enough mass, and thus mutual gravity,
to have pulled them into a collision in the time
available since the big bang.
So it’s a stalemate. Unless, that is, something
is up with gravity. Newton’s and Einstein’s
theories assume that gravity is a force whose
strength declines with the square of the
distance between two massive objects.
That indeed seems to be the case on scales
up to that of our solar system – the orbit
of a body as far out as Pluto conforms to
expectations. But it is an assumption we’ve
never been able to test on larger scales.
The heretical idea that gravity’s strength is
not the same everywhere was proposed back
in the 1980s as an alternative to dark matter.
Known as MOND for “modified Newtonian
dynamics”, the idea was floated by Mordechai
Milgrom, then at Princeton University in
New Jersey. He found that the rotation of
galaxies could be almost perfectly described
if, in situations where the gravitational
field is comparatively weak, its strength
did not continue to decline with the square
of distance, but flattens out. In such
environments, for example in the outer
reaches of galaxies, gravity will be stronger
than expected (see diagram, below right).
In 2014, Hongsheng Zhao of the University
of St Andrews, UK, working with Kroupa and
others, showed that such a subtle change
allowed for an interaction between the Milky
Way and Andromeda between 7 and 11 billion
years ago. “Simply speaking, MONDian
dynamics demands that there was a past
interaction between the two,” says Pawlowski.
Superfluid epiphany
But MOND is not exactly flavour of the month
among physicists. Even though the strength
of gravity has never been tested in very weak
fields, the idea that a force of nature should
change its strength so readily is unpalatable
to most. And MOND runs into problems when
the scales get extremely large. In clusters of
many galaxies, dark matter is still needed
to hold everything together. And those hot
and cold spots in the cosmic microwave
background are very hard to explain without
some form of dark matter assisting the
collapse of normal matter into galaxies.
All of this gave Pawlowski pause for
thought, wondering whether the MOND idea
might itself be modified not just to explain
a past collision between the Milky Way
and Andromeda, but also to fit all other
observations. “Maybe MOND is telling us
something about gravity,” he says. “Or maybe
it is telling us something about dark matter.”
Enter Justin Khoury with the self-same
question – and perhaps an answer. A
theoretical physicist at the University of
Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Khoury has long
been fascinated by the success of MOND in
32 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

of two models previously regarded as
implacably opposed. For this hybrid model
to work, his calculations suggest that the
dark matter itself is a billion times lighter
than current models indicate.
TATIANA PLAKHOVA
“ THE SUPERFLUID WOULD
REPLICATE DARK MATTER ON
SOME SCALES, AND MODIFY
GRAVITY ON OTHERS”
describing cosmic dynamics up to the scale of
galaxies – and its failure with anything bigger.
“You need the component that modifies gravity
on galaxy scales to go quiet on cosmological
scales,” he says. “How do you accommodate
that?” His answer: with superfluids.
Khoury’s epiphany involves a superfluid
state known as a Bose-Einstein condensate,
which kicks in among some types of normal
matter atoms once they drop below a certain
temperature. In this state, the constituent
particles begin to behave as one single,
coherent mass that has no viscosity and
flows without impediment. When the
temperature rises again, they snap back
out into a normal, viscous fluid state.
If dark matter particles could enter a Bose-
Einstein state, Khoury reasoned, that would
be just the thing to replicate MOND on certain
scales, and ordinary dark matter on others.
In the relatively weak gravitational fields of
galaxies, dark matter would be slow-moving
and have a low effective temperature. It would
slip into a Bose-Einstein state whose energy
would be spread uniformly across its extent,
curving space and creating a MOND-like
additional gravitational force. But in stronger
gravitational fields, as found in galaxy
clusters, the coherence would break and the
matter would behave just like ordinary dark
matter, contributing its own minuscule force
of gravity particle by particle.
This would also explain why we see no
MONDian behaviour on the scale of our solar
system. With our sun, we have a very strong
local source of gravity, so the condensate
would break down on this local level. The same
would be true of each of the Milky Way’s stars,
which would behave like impurities in the
condensate. But because our galaxy, like all
galaxies, is mainly empty space, the overall
galactic condensate would still dominate.
Khoury is not the first to suggest dark
matter dynamics would naturally mimic
those of a Bose-Einstein condensate, but he
is the first to suggest it would lead to MONDlike
variations in gravity, thus unifying bits
Gravity assist
Modified Newtonian dynamics provides a boost
togravity’s strength at largedistances
Strength
of gravity
Modified gravity
Standard inversesquare
gravity
Distance from centre of gravity
Stark mismatch
Khoury is currently developing computer
models to see how superfluid dark-matter
haloes would affect how galaxies merge, and
so see if there are any observations he could
make to test the idea. He is also collaborating
with a condensed-matter physicist colleague
at the University of Pennsylvania, Tom
Lubensky, to see if there is any supercooled
atomic fluid known to create exactly the
predicted effect. “If so, then perhaps we can
use cold atom gases to simulate galaxies
and mergers in the laboratory,” he says.
Some regard talk of superfluid dark matter
modifying gravity as an unnecessary and
unwelcome complication – a big disruption
to explain the relatively small problem of
strangely aligned dwarf galaxies. Ed Shaya
of the University of Maryland in College
Park, for instance, thinks that the mismatch
between simulations and the reality of the
dwarf galaxies is down to a lack of computing
power, which limits the resolution of
simulations. He believes that there are still
solutions invoking ordinary physics and
ordinary dark matter. “It is not yet time to
give up on the standard model,” he says.
The distance between simulation and
reality is stark for now. The vast polar
structure’s ring shape is about 500,000 light
years in diameter, yet no more than 50,000
light years wide. Although some standard
galaxy formation simulations can be rigged
to produce similar alignments, they never
produce rings less than a million light years
in width. For Pawlowski, this mismatch is a
big deal. “There are a number of problems
that the standard model has on the scale of
galaxies, but this is the biggest.”
None of this will affect our ultimate fate,
as we serenely spiral towards the giant
firework show at the end of our galaxy. But
will that shock and awe display be a repeat
performance? Who knows – and if we have
to modify our ideas of gravity and dark
matter, we can’t pencil the next date into
our diaries with much certainty, either.
The fireworks could be going off a fair bit
earlier than expected. ■
Stuart Clark is a consultant for New Scientist and
author of The Unknown Universe (Head of Zeus)
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 33

SERGE PICARD/AGENCE VU/CAMERAPRESS
Getting the
word out
Often thought of as a psychological
disorder, stammering could have a very
different cause, finds Norman Miller
IPRAY every day that no one will ask my name.
That’s not because “Norman” is so terrible
(it’s bad, but not that bad), but because I
stammer. The thing we get asked most often
in life is nearly impossible for me to get out.
I’m far from alone. Also called stuttering,
stammering affects around 70 million people
worldwide, and every language has a word
for it. Despite this, it is an enigma, often
ending up the subject of humour, pity or
jibes rather than serious research. And until
recently, any research that did occur focused
on psychological causes of a condition many
linked to mental trauma or anxiety.
Now, with developments in brain imaging
and genetic techniques, a new picture of
the condition is emerging, one that suggests
a more tangible explanation. “There is
something fundamentally different about
the brains of people who stutter,” says Scott
34 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

Grafton, a neuroscientist at the University of
California, Santa Barbara. And the hope is that
a better grasp of the physiological basis of
stammering could lead to better treatments.
For much of history, stammerers have
been subjected to often misguided “cures”.
One old belief blamed abnormalities of the
tongue, leading to barbaric cutting of the
“offending” body part. The Greek philosopher
Demosthenes worked to boost his fluency by
shouting at the sea with pebbles in his mouth.
In the 1920s, scientific investigation
of stammering began, with a focus on
psychological theories. One notable early idea
was that it was caused by negative reactions
by overanxious parents to children’s normal
speech hesitancies – an idea still around when
I was being sent to speech therapists in the
1970s, despite a lack of clinical evidence.
The riddles that stammering presents don’t
help. Around 5 per cent of children aged 2 to
5 years old will stammer at some point, but
most grow out of it. And many who do stammer
into adulthood can experience occasions when
their speech stops stumbling – for instance,
when singing or putting on a foreign accent.
The fact that some people acquire a stammer
as a result of brain trauma hinted there could
be a neurological basis. But it was only with the
advent of neuroimaging that we could finally
peer at the brain in action as people stammer.
Speech is produced via a series of precisely
coordinated muscle movements involving
breathing, phonation – or voice production –
and the movement of the throat, palate,
tongue and lips, known as articulation.
This sequence requires sophisticated
coordination of several brain areas. Brainimaging
studies in people who stammer are
pointing to neurological differences leading
to a breakdown in this highly coordinated
planning and execution process.
One implicated area is the arcuate fasciculus,
a bundle of nerve fibres that transmits signals
to parts of the brain known to be involved in
speech production. Last year, Grafton’s team
scanned the brains of people who stammer
and found striking differences in this area.
“In the vast majority of the stutterers we
scanned, there seems to be a missing branch
of neural connections,” he says. This suggests
that the signals involved in speech production
could be getting lost. The idea is backed up by
studies carried out by Kate Watkins and her
colleagues at the University of Oxford, who
found connectivity problems in the arcuate
fasciculus of both adult and child stammerers.
Other implicated regions are Broca’s
area, which is involved in directing muscle
movement of the mouth when you form
words, and the striatum, a part of the brain
located in the basal ganglia, which play a
key part in facilitating voluntary movement.
NIALL O’LEARY/MILLENNIUM IMAGES
But studies that show stammering is related
to connection faults in the speech-producing
networks of the brain raise a question: why
do some people overcome the condition? To
find out, Christian Kell at the Brain Imaging
Center in Frankfurt, Germany, has been
comparing the brain function of stammerers
with that of these recovered stammerers.
We know that among fluent speakers,
the left hemisphere of the brain takes the
dominant role in speech production. In
stammerers, the right hemisphere activates
more strongly when speaking, even if they
aren’t stammering. Kell thinks their brains are
attempting to compensate for malfunctions in
speech areas of the left hemisphere. “To some
degree, this could reduce symptoms – but only
partly, because the right hemisphere usually is
not specialised in speaking,” he says.
Among recovered stammerers, however, Kell
found that some left-hemisphere networks
TYPES OF STAMMER
DEVELOPMENTAL: The most common form,
appearing from childhood and probably linked to
differences in brain structure (see main story)
NEUROGENIC: develops as a result of
strokes or other brain trauma
PSYCHOGENIC: a rare form that arises after
severe emotional trauma
were working again – in particular Brodmann
Area 47, or BA47. This is known to be involved
in various speech mechanisms. In persistent
stutterers, scans show BA47 as one of the areas
that doesn’t activate properly, but among
recovered stammerers it appears to work.
So what causes these brain differences
in the first place? It isn’t clear yet whether
they cause the stutter or whether disfluencies
in early childhood create the anomalies as
the brain is developing, says Watkins. “The
differences are there in young children close
to the time that stammering starts, but most
of the data acquired has been from adults
who have stammered all their lives,” she
says. The best way to solve this mystery will
be studies that follow children who stammer
over years or decades.
Other clues come from genetics – studies
using twins, for instance, show a strong
genetic element. In the hunt for stammering
genes, Dennis Drayna at the National
Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland,
is focusing on families with multiple
stammerers – including one extended
Cameroonian family with more than 40.
Finding a voice
In one analysis of nearly 400 people who
stammer, Drayna found three gene mutations
that appeared repeatedly among them, but
not in a control group. As these genes encode
an enzyme that recycles cellular components,
Drayna believes that these mutations could
prevent the recycling of cells in brain areas
related to speech processing, resulting in the
sort of anomalies – such as missing neural
connections – seen in scans.
Even so, these types of genetic changes
will only be responsible for some cases
of stammering. There is now a growing
understanding that stammering probably
takes on different forms, each with a different
cause (see “Types of stammer”, left).
For those whose stammer is linked to
brain changes, the discoveries are offering a
glimmer of hope for the ultimate treatment –
a pill to make a stammer disappear.
Efforts are homing in on drugs that block
the brain chemical dopamine, following the
curious discovery that people given dopamine
boosters to treat other conditions acquired a
stutter. “Every study completed of a dopamine
blocker [in stammerers] has shown positive
benefit,” says neuroscientist and lifelong
stammerer Gerald Maguire of the School
of Medicine at the University of California,
Riverside. “Dopamine medications result
in a more natural speech by improving
the function of the striatum. We become
fluent when we sing because we bypass
the defective striatum.”
His money is on asenapine – a dopamine
blocker that is approved to treat bipolar
disorder and schizophrenia. In a small study
of stammerers, Maguire found it improved
fluency by between 60 and 75 per cent. Side
effects were minor, so I for one am keeping
my fingers firmly crossed that it makes it
onto the stammering prescription list soon.
Not everyone is as confident. “I think the
scientific theories that implicate dopamine
are persuasive,” says Watkins, “but the
evidence from brain-imaging studies is not
particularly clear.” Part of the problem is that
studies have only been done on small groups.
Still, I can take some comfort in the fact
that stammering is finally getting the serious
research it deserves. And that perhaps one day I
will be able to say my name with confidence. ■
Norman Miller is a freelance writer in Brighton, UK
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 35

36 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

To make computers better, we need to make
them worse, says Paul Marks
Let’s cut them
some slack
KRISHNA PALEM’S computers won’t win
any awards for accuracy. Most of the time
they can’t even add up correctly. For
them, 2 + 2 might as well be 5. But don’t be
fooled by the wobbly arithmetic. Palem is
making machines that could represent a new
dawn for computing.
Inaccuracy is not something we typically
associate with computers. Since Alan Turing
laid down their ground rules in the 1930s,
computers have been sticklers for precision,
built on the principle of following step-by-step
instructions in an exact and reproducible
manner. They should not make errors.
But maybe we should cut them some slack.
Letting computers make mistakes could be the
best way to unlock the next wave of smart
devices and prevent high-performance
computing hitting a wall. It would allow us to
run complex simulations that are beyond
today’s supercomputers – models that better
predict climate change, help us design more
efficient cars and aircraft, and reveal the
secrets of galaxy formation. They may even
unlock the biggest mystery of all, by letting us
simulate the human brain.
Until now, we have had to accept a trade-off
between performance and energy efficiency:
a computer can be either fast or low-powered,
but not both. This not only means that more
powerful smartphones need better batteries,
but also that supercomputers are energy
guzzlers. Next-generation “exaflop” machines,
which are capable of 10 18 operations a second,
could consume as much as 100 megawatts, the
output of a small power station. So the race is
on to make computers do more with less.
One way is simply to reduce the amount of
time spent executing code – the less time
taken, the less power used. For programmers,
SPENCER WILSON
this means looking for ways to get the desired
result more quickly. Take the classic travellingsalesman
problem of finding the shortest
route around a group of cities. It’s notoriously
tough to solve, given that the number of
possible routes shoots up exponentially with
the number of cities. Palem, a computer
scientist at Rice University in Houston, Texas,
says that coders often settle for a route that
they estimate to be about half as good as the
best, because to do better would use up too
much computer time. A more recent version
of this approach is to use a machine-learning
algorithm to arrive at an approximate result for
a given piece of code. This rough answer – like
a back-of-the-envelope calculation – can then
be used each time the program runs instead of
executing the original section of code itself.
But saving energy by cutting corners in
software only goes so far. To really save
power, you need to change the way the
hardware works. Computers can save vast
amounts of energy simply by not operating
all their transistors at full power all the time,
but as we’ll soon see, this means sacrificing
accuracy. Palem’s team is hobbling computers
so that they get their sums wrong in an
acceptable way. “What we are proposing is to
alter the computer itself to give you cheaper
but slightly less accurate answers,” says Palem.
Take any algorithm that you think does a good
job, and he will solve it inexactly with a
different physical system under the hood.
Standard computer chips use a sliver of
silicon called a channel to act as a switch
that can flip between on (1) and off (0). The
switching is controlled by a gate that stops a
current flowing through the channel until you
apply a voltage. Then the gate opens like a
sluice in a dam, letting current through.
>
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 37

But it’s finicky. This complementary metaloxide
semiconductor (CMOS) technology only
works well when it has a reliable 5-volt power
supply. Start to lower that and the channel
becomes unstable – sometimes switching,
sometimes not.
In 2003, Palem, then at the Georgia Institute
of Technology in Atlanta, saw trouble coming.
It was clear that the ability of the electronics
industry to continue doubling the number of
transistors on a chip every 18 to 24 months – a
miniaturisation trend known as Moore’s law –
was coming to an end. Miniaturisation was
introducing errors at the chip level. This was
largely due to overheating and interference,
or crosstalk, between the densely packed
transistors. “It was quite likely ultra-small
devices would become quite unstable,” says
Palem. Power was now the critical issue.
What if you could harness instabilities in
some way that would also save energy?
Palem’s answer was to design a probabilistic
version of CMOS technology that was
deliberately unstable. His team built digital
MISSING BITS
Krishna Palem is building an inexact
computer that saves power by
relaxing its precision. With this set-up,
8 + 5 could equal a range of values.
Here’s why: in Palem’s system,
transistors representing the least
significant digits in a number are
deliberately run at a lower than ideal
voltage. This makes them unstable,
prone to flipping from 1 to 0 or 0 to 1.
In a 16-bit number, the eight least
significant bits could be incorrect.
“As many as half the bits can be
flipping,” says Palem.
As a simplified example, consider
adding two 4-bit numbers. In binary,
8 is 1000 and 5 is 0101, and adding
them should give 1101, or 13. But if
the two least significant – rightmost –
bits can flip, then the result
could become 1100 (which is 12), 1110
(14) or 1111 (15). It is possible that the
inputs, 8 and 5, might get corrupted
too: 1000 (8) could turn into 1001 (9),
1010 (10) or 1011 (11); and 0101 (5)
into 0100 (4), 0110 (6) or 0111 (7).
Finally, the result of adding any two of
these numbers could become
corrupted as well, leading to a range
of inexact answers.
Modelling the crucial role of clouds in climate
change is too costly with today’s computers
circuits in which the most significant bits –
those representing values that need to be
accurate – get a regular 5-volt supply, but the
least significant bits get 1 volt. “The significant
bits are running at a proper, well-behaved
voltage, but the least significant get really
slack,” says Palem. As many as half the bits
representing a number can be hobbled like this.
This means that Palem’s version of an adder,
a common logic circuit that simply adds two
numbers, doesn’t work with the usual
precision (see “Missing bits”, below). “When
it adds two numbers, it gives an answer that is
reasonably good but not exact,” he says. “But
it is much cheaper in terms of energy use.”
Spread that over billions of transistors and
you have a significant power saving. The trick
is to choose applications for which the least
significant bits don’t matter too much: for
example, using a large range of numbers
to represent the colour of a pixel. In one
experiment, Palem and his colleagues built
a digital video decoder that interpreted the
least significant bits in an imprecise way
when converting pixel data into screen
colours. They found that human viewers
perceived very little loss in image quality.
“The human eye averages a lot of things out,”
says Palem. “Think about how we see illusions.
The brain does a lot of work to compensate.”
Encouraged by that success, the Rice
University researchers have moved on to
another application involving the senses:
hearing aids. Their initial tests show that
inexact digital processing in a hearing aid
can halve power consumption while reducing
intelligibility by only 5 per cent. The results
suggest that we could use such techniques
to slash the power used by smartphones and
personal computers, given that these are
basically audiovisual devices.
Tim Palmer, a climate physicist at the
University of Oxford, sees even greater
potential. He thinks that computers based
on Palem’s ideas could be the answer to what
is presently an intractable problem: how to
improve the accuracy of climate predictions
for the next century without waiting years
for a new generation of supercomputers.
“The crucial question about climate change
centres on the role of clouds,” says Palmer, in
terms of whether they amplify or dampen
the effects of global warming. “You can’t
really answer that question with any great
confidence unless you can simulate cloud
systems directly.” And right now, it’s not
NGMART/NATIONALGEOGRAPHICCREATIVE
clear how to do that.
Today’s supercomputers don’t have the
brawn to do it, and their successors, expected
in the next decade or so, will just be too
energy-hungry. “Based on current estimates,
the amount of power needed for such a
machine is going to be around 100 megawatts,”
says Palmer, five to 10 times what today’s
top supercomputers use. Assuming they
don’t just melt, running them could prove
prohibitively costly.
“Doing 20 calculations
inexactly may be more
useful than 10 done exactly”
Supercomputers burn so much power
because they are generally optimised for
computing with 64-bit-long numbers. In
principle, this gives greater accuracy. But
climate models involve millions of variables,
simulating complex interacting factors such
as winds, convection, temperatures, air
pressures, ocean temperatures and salinity.
The result, says Palmer, is that they have too
much power-draining data to crunch. What’s
needed, he says, is for different variables to be
38 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

individual clouds.
“Doing 20 calculations inexactly could be
much more useful than 10 done exactly,” says
Palmer. This is because at 100-kilometre scales,
the simulation is a crude reflection of reality.
The computations may be accurate, but the
model is not. Cutting precision to get a finergrained
model would actually give you greater
accuracy overall. “It is more valuable to have
an inexact answer to an exact equation than
an exact answer to an inexact equation,” he
says. “With the exact equation, I’m really
describing the physics of clouds.”
Power hungry
Despite huge advances in performance, conventional
computers are no match for the human brain when
it comes to efficiency
represented in data strings of varying length,
depending on their importance to the model.
Chipmakers are starting to accommodate
such needs. Nvidia has launched a graphics
processor unit, the TX1, that is capable of
“mixed-precision” processing, allowing
software to switch between 16 and 32-bit
operation as it runs. But Palmer wants to see
Palem’s inexact chips adopted too. “If we can
reduce the number of bits that you need to do
calculations, that would have an enormous
impact on energy consumption,” he says.
Palmer and his colleagues are talking to
supercomputer makers like IBM and Cray
about developing a new breed of energyefficient
hybrid machines that allow varying
levels of accuracy, and that may even adopt
Palem’s strategy. And Palem’s team is working
on mixed-precision computing with the US
government’s Argonne National Laboratory in
Illinois and the European Centre for Medium-
Range Weather Forecasts in Reading, UK.
The pay-offs could be huge. Today’s climate
models tackle Earth’s atmosphere by breaking
it into regions roughly 100 kilometres square
and a kilometre high. Palmer thinks inexact
computing would get this down to cubes a
kilometre across – detailed enough to model
Degrees of accuracy
You can’t just give up on accuracy across the
board, of course. “There is no doubt that if you
represent all of the variables in the climate
model with just 16 bits rather than 64 bits it
would be a disaster: it would fail very quickly,”
says Palmer. The challenge is choosing which
parts can be treated more crudely than others.
Researchers are attacking the problem
from several different angles. Mostly, it comes
down to devising ways to specify thresholds
of accuracy in code so that programmers can
say when and where errors are acceptable.
The software then computes inexactly only in
parts that have been designated safe.
Approximation is not the answer for
everyone, however. Rashid Mansoor is a
London-based computer scientist and
entrepreneur who invented Adbrain, an
algorithm that tracks millions of web users as
they move between devices. He is now looking
at ways to speed up computing done in the
cloud. But Mansoor sees inexactness as a last
resort. “We don’t yield approximate results for
the sake of speeding up computation,” he says.
“We’d consider it to be cheating.”
Even so, Stan Posey, who heads Nvidia’s highperformance
computing team in Santa Clara,
California, sees a host of applications for which
inexact computing will make a big difference,
including accident investigations. After the
Columbia space-shuttle disaster of 2003,
caused by a chunk of insulating foam breaking
off and making a hole in a wing, Posey and his
colleagues spent countless hours simulating
scenarios that could have led to this happening.
He thinks inexact computing would now allow
a number of simulations an order of magnitude
higher within the same time frame. Scenarios
that are worth looking into more closely can
then be pursued with higher accuracy.
Some think inexact simulations could
ultimately help us understand the brain.
Supercomputers like IBM’s Blue Gene are
Smartphone
Desktop PC
Next-generation supercomputer
Human brain
being used to model neurological functions in
the Human Brain Project, for example. But
there is a huge discrepancy in power
consumption between the brain and a
supercomputer, says Palmer (see “Power
hungry”). “A supercomputer needs megawatts
of power, yet a human brain runs on the power
of a light bulb.” What could account for this?
Palmer and colleagues at the University of
Sussex in Brighton, UK, are exploring whether
random electrical fluctuations might provide
probabilistic signals in the brain. His theory is
that this is what lets it do so much with so little
power. Indeed, the brain could be the perfect
example of inexact computing, shaped by
pressure to keep energy consumption down.
What’s clear is that to make computers
better, we need to make them worse. Palmer is
convinced that partly abandoning Turing’s
concept of how a computer should work is the
way forward if we are to discover the true risks
we face from global warming. “It could be the
difference between climate change being a
relatively manageable problem and one that
will be an existential problem for humanity.”
And if approximate computing seems a
shaky foundation on which to build the future
of computing, it’s worth remembering that
computers are always dealing with the
abstract. “All computing is approximation,”
says Posey. Some are just more approximate
than others. ■
Paul Marks is a technology journalist based in London
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 39

YOU
SWINE!
Feral pigs are wreaking
havoc across the globe.
But it isn’t easy to outwit
these brainy beasts,
says Stephen Ornes
RODNEY WOODSON never set out to be a
pig trapper. He joined the Tennessee
Wildlife Resources Agency because he
was passionate about conserving water birds.
But that was before the hogs rocked up, with
their high libidos and low cunning.
Across the world, and especially in the
southern US, feral pigs are a problem.
Marauding hordes of swine are destroying
crops and sensitive natural environments,
causing traffic accidents and spreading
disease and parasites. They have even dug up
cemeteries. The US Department of Agriculture
estimates the damage at $1.5 billion a year.
As so often with invasive species, this is a
problem of our own making. Wild pigs were
introduced to the US by Spanish settlers
hundreds of years ago, but weren’t a cause of
widespread concern until the 1990s, says
zoologist Jack Mayer at the Savannah River
National Laboratory in South Carolina, when
cable TV ads began promoting the animals as
an exotic alternative hunting target to turkeys
and deer. In 1999, Tennessee established a hog
hunting season, and soon enterprising
landowners were stocking up. That ushered in
“an explosion of new hog populations” across
the state, says Chuck Yoest, coordinator of the
Tennessee Wild Hog Eradication Action Team,
part of the agency that Woodson works for. In
2011, the state reclassified pigs from big game
to destructive pests.
The pigs’ supercharged reproduction rate
isn’t helping. A sow may produce two or more
litters of typically five or six pigs every year,
making it nearly impossible to cull all the
NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF ENV/EYEVINE RODNEY WOODSON
individuals in an area at once. Pig population
models show that clearing an area requires
removing 70 per cent of the animals “year
after year after year, until you drive that
population to extinction”, says Mayer.
In Texas, some landowners now offer
wealthy customers the opportunity to
machine-gun pigs from a helicopter for as
much as $1000 an hour. Other communities
have called in teams of sharp shooters. But
critics say that these methods of pig control
are not just inhumane, but ineffective. For a
start swine are fast: they can run at up to
50 kilometres an hour. They can also respond
to hunting pressure in surprising ways, for
example switching between nocturnal and
diurnal living patterns. “They’re a pain in the
backside, but they are interesting critters,”
says Mayer.
Traps of the sort Woodson lays are generally
thought to be the least bad option in dealing
with the pigs. But porcine intelligence makes
trapping a full time job. Pigs have been shown
to beat chimps when it comes to IQ, are
whizzes at navigating complex mazes and can
manipulate cursors on a screen by controlling
a joystick with their snout. It means in simple
traps they soon work out how to jump over
short fences and climb taller ones, for example
by gaining purchase at a corner.
Boar busting
Woodson’s first tactic was to play the long
game and put the pigs under surveillance. He
installed cameras near baited traps, so pest
control officers could examine pictures to see
how many animals came by, and when. Once
they knew which traps were frequented by the
hogs, they could stake them out, hiding near a
40 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

Hog hordes
Problem pigs are popping
up across the globe
UK Wild pigs went extinct in the UK
300 years ago but now they are back
thanks to leaky farms. Last year, a
survey from the Forestry Commission
estimated there were over 1000 in the
Forest of Dean, on the England-Wales
border, alone.
Italy Last year swine in Tuscany
snaffled enough Chianti grapes to
fill 130,000 bottles of wine, leading
wine-makers to call for mass
extermination.
Germany Berlin is home to thousands
of wild hogs that pick through rubbish,
spreading it around neighbourhoods,
and sporadically attack people.
Australia So-called “grunter hunters”
have a huge problem on their hands:
according to official estimates there
are 23 million feral pigs in Australia –
more than humans.
trap and triggering its gate at the right moment.
This was by no means a perfect strategy. It
took lots of time and people, and although
pigs can’t see well, they have a keen sense of
smell. If they picked up the scent of a human,
the pigs wouldn’t approach a trap.
So in his latest iteration Woodson has
gone wireless, using solar-powered cameras
overlooking a circular enclosure with
1.4-metre-high fences – high enough for pigs
to have trouble climbing them, and with no
corners to aid escape. When a motion sensor
detects a pig-sized animal, it sends Woodson
an email. From his own home, he can watch a
real-time feed of the trap and at the right
moment flip a switch to drop the gate.
This human check is critical, Woodson says.
If even one pig from a group is left uncaught,
it may learn to avoid similar traps. Though
maternal education in pigs hasn’t been
studied rigorously, Woodson’s experience
suggests that if it’s a sow, it may train its
offspring to do the same.
His creative trapping is bearing fruit: the
record for one of the traps is 52 swine at once.
And the wireless approach is generally
becoming more popular. Landowners can buy
commercial versions of remotely operated
traps, including the $6000 Australian model
known as the “Boar Buster”.
But the story is far from over. Eager for
more game, a few unscrupulous landowners
are still trafficking pigs to Tennessee from
neighbouring states, creating fresh pockets
of infestation. Longer-term, climate change
may also exacerbate things, at least in Europe.
Last year, researchers at the University of
Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria,
predicted that feral pig numbers there will
surge during mild winters, as more food
US A pair of pigs straying onto the
runway at Florida’s Jacksonville
International Airport in 1988 caused
an F-16 fighter to crash and the pilot
to eject. According to an Associated
Press report at the time: “The pigs
were killed. The pilot was bruised.
The $16-million jet was destroyed.”
becomes available.
So others are thinking beyond traps. There
is the “Judas pig” method, in which, when a
group of pigs is culled, a sow is left alive and
tagged with a GPS collar. She then does the
hard work of finding another, doomed, tribe –
at which point shooters are sent in. Then there
are chemical approaches such as hog-specific
poison or contraceptives. Later this month,
trappers and conservationists will brainstorm
new ideas in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, at
the international Wild Pig Conference.
Meanwhile Woodson can’t stand idle. His
latest trap has an oblong pen with two gates
directly opposite each other, giving the pigs
the illusion of a safe passage. The hogs in his
patch are wise. It is a brutal business, and
there’s no time for complacency. ■
Stephen Ornes is a journalist in Nashville, Tennessee
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 41

CULTURELAB
Animal crackers
Pretending to be other creatures is a very human game, says Paul Cobley
Being a Beast by Charles Foster,
Profile Books, £14.99
GoatMan: How I took a holiday from
being human by Thomas Thwaites,
Princeton Architectural Press,
$24.95/£14.99
WHO hasn’t wondered what life
would be like as a (non-human)
animal – flying, leaping,
burrowing and doing all manner
of everyday things that feral
animals do? Such conjectures
are universal. But who would
actually go so far as to attempt to
“become” a specific animal? Two
new books, GoatMan and Being
a Beast, offer engaging answers
to this last question, even if they
never quite manage to get to grips
with the substance of what it is
like to be another kind of creature.
Both volumes veer into the
territory of the classic essay by
philosopher Thomas Nagel, who
asked in 1974 “What is it like to be
a bat?” He concluded that the core
of the problem was consciousness.
In the end, the consciousness of
the bat would be inaccessible to
us, no matter what measures we
took to put ourselves in its place.
“It will not help,” he writes,
“to try to imagine that one has
webbing on one’s arms, which
enables one to fly around at dusk
and dawn catching insects in
one’s mouth; that one has very
poor vision, and perceives the
surrounding world by a system
of reflected high-frequency sound
signals; and that one spends the
day hanging upside down by one’s
feet in an attic.” Such measures
would only enable one to behave
as a bat seems to behave; what it
is to be a bat would be another
matter altogether.
These books take a different
view – or at least try to sidestep
FELICITY MCCABE / THE GUARDIAN
the problem. Recounting how,
after winning a grant from the
Wellcome Trust, he prepared
to live like a goat, Thwaites is
childishly defiant: “Well screw
you, Nagel! I’m going to try
anyway.” Meanwhile Foster – a
traveller who sees himself in a
tradition of nature writing –
takes on some of the behaviours
of badgers, urban foxes, otters,
red deer and swifts. He takes
“Beyond the entertainment
afforded by the efforts
of the authors, is there
much to learn here?”
Nagel’s suggestion for a new
phenomenology to describe
animal worlds as a cue for
poesy or a vague reorientation
of language.
The projects described by each
writer consist of fairly limited
attempts to behave like certain
animals. In terms of value for
money, then, the reader can
choose: at roughly the same
length, one book reveals very little
about one species, the other reveals
very little about five species.
Foster’s approach is, in some
ways, allied to recent work in
animal studies – a burgeoning
Joining the smart sett: Charles
Foster camped out as a badger
field in the humanities – in the
way it takes a tissue of human
perspectives as its starting point
and tries to transcend them.
Foster camps out in a badger sett
in Wales with his 8-year-old son,
and prostrates himself in east
London so as to gain a fox’s-eye
view. Following an introductory
chapter, the book is organised
sequentially around highly
personalised discussions of
his five chosen species.
Thwaites’s approach in
42 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

For more books and arts coverage, visit newscientist.com/culturelab
GoatMan (out in May) is more
focused. Originally wanting
to live as an elephant, he takes
the advice of a Scandinavian
shaman and tries to “become”
a goat. His chapters are devoted
to “Soul”, “Mind”, “Body”, “Guts”
and “Goat Life”.
Despite the liberal use of irony
and bathos, as well as a generally
jokey tone in both books,
Thwaites’s descriptions of his
consultations with experts do
threaten to illuminate the world
of a non-human animal. In
particular, his attempts – and
initial failures – to replicate goat
physiology are probably the most
rewarding passages of either book.
Blood will out
Still, the reader is left
wondering whether, beyond the
entertainment afforded by the
efforts of the authors, there is
much to learn here. After the
elaborate build-up in GoatMan,
not to mention the enticing
cover image – like the book, both
comical and intriguing – it is
disappointing that Thwaites
seems to spend so little time
among his chosen species. (He
does, however, find a way to eat
grass.) Foster, by contrast, has a
friend bring meals to him in the
badger sett.
Inevitably, the reader is going to
feel short-changed. It is as if both
of these projects had involved
the authors “becoming” me and,
out of all my characteristics,
had chosen drinking tea as more
representative than my enduring
the Northern Line, suffering
athlete’s foot, carrying the
consequences of an inability
to afford a dental bridge, etc.
Nevertheless, we can now
confirm who would go so far as to
try to find out what it is like to be a
non-human animal – and that is
the gentleman explorer, alive and
kicking with his gentility intact. ■
Paul Cobley is a semiotician and
professor in language and media
at Middlesex University, UK
A drug to make us good?
Jonathon Keats looks for morality in a neuroscientific mess
The Myth of the Moral Brain: The
limits of moral enhancement by Harris
Wiseman, MIT Press, $38/£26.95
IN 2007, Paul Zak
gathered 68 young
men to play a
game. Pairing
them at random,
he gave $10 to one
person in each
pair, which the
recipient was instructed to split
with his partner. The former could
choose how much to offer. If the
latter accepted, both men kept the
cash. If not, they had to return it.
This is the ultimatum game, a
standard economics experiment.
But Zak, a neuroeconomist, gave it
a twist by dosing half his subjects
with oxytocin. The difference was
dramatic. Those who took a dose
of the hormone were 80 per cent
more generous than those who
didn’t. On the strength of this and
In the real world, our actions and
motivations have complex roots
other studies linking oxytocin
with trust, oxytocin has been
lauded as the “moral” chemical.
Harris Wiseman is sceptical.
He’s also wary of morality claims
for serotonin, dopamine and TMS,
in which electricity is used to
stimulate areas of the brain. In
The Myth of the Moral Brain, he
argues compellingly against
“neuroprimacy” in ethics. “Moral
functioning is travestied when
approached primarily through
biological lenses,” he writes.
Through his thoughtful critique
of neuroscientific reductionism,
he provides a foundation for
understanding the complexities
of moral action.
Wiseman objects to Zak’s
experiments. Real life, he argues, is
nothing like psychological studies,
which require that participants
make simple decisions in
controlled conditions. To attain
statistical significance, the
experiments sacrifice relevance.
Even more damning, Wiseman
observes that the results reveal
TIM O’LEARY/ MILLENNIUM IMAGES
nothing about motivation. In the
ultimatum game, oxytocin may
make the subjects more generous,
or, equally plausibly, it may make
them more risk adverse – which
has nothing to do with morality.
As a result of these serious
limitations, Wiseman thinks
that neuroscience is largely
counterproductive when it comes
to understanding ethics. “Such
studies have given us the illusion
that our understanding has been
deepened,” he writes, “when,
arguably, the superficiality of
the methods, combined with
the authority the domain
carries with it, have served to
undermine and in fact reduce
our understanding of the real-life
phenomena [they] are supposed
to be representing.”
On one level, The Myth of the
Moral Brain is a cautionary tale
of overconfidence in easy fixes
for deep flaws. On another level,
Wiseman uses the inadequacies
of neuroprimacy to stress that
morality emerges not only from
biology, but also from
psychological, political, socialenvironmental,
economic and
religious influences. In such a
quagmire, no drug can be
expected to effectively target
evil. Instead, “virtues require
practice”, he writes.
In this conclusion, Wiseman is
convincing. The challenge is to get
people to practise morally salient
traits such as trust and generosity.
Ironically, chemicals may help.
If we believe that oxytocin
makes us behave morally, we
might yet be enhanced by an
ethical placebo effect. ■
Jonathon Keats is the author of
You Belong To The Universe:
Buckminster Fuller and the future
2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 43

Collaboration
Sara Cherry first met
Carolyn Coyne when she was
interviewing for her position at
the University of Pennsylvania,
where Coyne was a postdoc.
What began as a casual
collaboration quickly grew
into something more. When
Coyne moved to take a job
at the University of Pittsburgh
and found her laboratory
wasn’t ready, Cherry offered
her space in her lab and in her
home. They worked together to
identify host genes that can help
viruses like those that cause
meningitis cross the blood-brain
barrier. The collaboration was
hugely successful, resulting in a
publication in a top tier journal and
a strong friendship that lasts to this
day.
The two infectious disease
researchers have talked regularly
over the last ten years, as much
about their husbands and kids as
about their science. But then the
Zika virus began to spread across the
Americas, leaving devastating birth
defects in its wake, and the phone
calls became a daily occurrence.
3 Tips on
How to Have a
Successful Collaboration
1. Be open and honest. There is no
such thing as a perfect collaboration
(or relationship), says Coyne, but
open and direct communication is
absolutely necessary to establish
the mutual trust needed for a
successful partnership.
2. Take the long view. When you are
¿UVWVWDUWLQJ\RXUODELWLVHDV\
to focus on authorship or other
accolades. Recognize that if you
behave respectably and share credit
appropriately, then everyone will
EHQH¿W
3. Have fun. It is important to like
and want to spend time with
your collaborators, Cherry says,
otherwise the work is no fun. The
same characteristics that make a
good friend can also make a good
collaborator.
specialized cells that reside in the
blood-brain barrier and the placenta
that can protect from infection. Cherry
has expertise in screening strategies
to identify new genes and pathways
in viral replication. Together, they are
searching for FDA-approved compounds
that can block Zika infection in placental
cells. The duo already found a handful
of promising candidates, which will
need to survive several more rounds of
rigorous testing before they could ever
be used in the clinic. Cherry says that
such collaborations can only succeed
when people share mutual trust and
respect for each other, and each play
their part.
“We can’t all be an expert at
everything,” said Cherry. “There are
very few labs and few people who
can do everything well and want to
do all these different things well. We
all have our own personal interests
and excitement. As the world gets
more and more sophisticated,
the assays, the technology, the
biology, I think it benefits us to
take advantage of expertise more
broadly.”
“It was pretty clear that we should work
together to understand and combat this
virus,” said Cherry. “We keep each other
informed about all the experiments we
have going on in the lab, and that way
we can share any assays or tricks that
we find. It is helpful to have that kind of
relationship. We are friends, and we know
that we wouldn’t do anything to compete
with each other. We know exactly what
each we can contribute, because we have
overlapping but different skill sets.”
Coyne has expertise in barrier cells, the
To read the complete article provided to New Scientist by Burroughs Wellcome Fund visit:
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A post-doctoral position is available in the Said Lab at Department of Cancer Biology,
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2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 45

www.NewScientistJobs.com
Faculty Position
Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics
College of Computing and Informatics
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
SUMMER PREVIEW
June 23-24, 2016
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Apply online: March 1 - April 12, 2016
medicine.umich.edu/postdoc
The University of Michigan Medical School
Postdoc Preview will introduce graduate
students in the biomedical sciences to the
extensive research and training opportunities
at Michigan. During a fully-funded visit,
recruits will interview with prospective
mentors and network with current postdocs.
Eligibility:
Applicants must be U.S. citizens, permanent
residents or currently enrolled in a U.S.
graduate institution.
Bioinformatics
Biological Chemistry
Biophysics
Cancer Biology
Cell Biology
Computational Biology
Developmental Biology
Research Areas:
Human Genetics
Immunology
Microbiology
Molecular Pathology
Molecular Physiology
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte invites applications for faculty
at the Assistant or Associate level in the Department of Bioinformatics and
Genomics in the College of Computing and Informatics. The Department
seeks candidates with a proven research record in Computational Systems
Biology, directed toward the theoretical modeling and simulation of complex
biological systems, alone or in combination with experimental approaches.
The successful candidate should have an earned doctorate and be eligible
for appointment at the rank of Assistant or Associate professor. We seek
applicants with a commitment to excellence in graduate and undergraduate
teaching and mentorship who have exceptional computational/analytic skills to
meet teaching requirements in one or more of the following areas: Statistics,
Programming, Structural Biology, Big Data Analytics as applied to biological
datasets, Machine Learning, and Integrative Systems Biology.
Research areas of interest include the development and application of data
analytic and theoretical methods, mathematical modeling, and simulation
techniques. Research should address important biological data analysis needs
such as structural and functional modeling of biomolecules and molecular
interactions, or integration of heterogeneous data sets into models of complex
systems, to address issues of health, agricultural productivity, and the
environment.
We offer a collegial environment, excellent facilities, a competitive start-up
package, and a competitive nine-month salary commensurate with experience.
Applications must be made electronically at https://jobs.uncc.edu (position
#1732) and must include a CV, contact information for 4 references, and
statements on research and teaching. Preliminary inquiries may be addressed
to Dr. Cynthia Gibas (cgibas@uncc.edu). The University of North Carolina at
Charlotte is an EOE/AA employer and an NSF ADVANCE Institution.
For additional information, please visit our website at
http://bioinformatics.uncc.edu.
Faculty Position
Computational Genomics
Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics
College of Computing and Informatics
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
The Department of Bioinformatics and Genomics at the University of North
Carolina at Charlotte seeks a tenure-track professor at any career stage
to work at our location in the North Carolina Research Campus (NCRC) in
Kannapolis. The NCRC is a public-private partnership between corporations,
universities and healthcare organizations advancing science at the
intersection of human health, nutrition and agriculture.
The NCRC hosts,UNC Charlotte, six other UNC system universities as well
as Duke University. UNC Charlotte has a leadership position at the NCRC in
bioinformatics. We seek applicants wishing to develop a research program in
bioinformatics, computational biology and/or computational genomics. This
position is part of a larger university-wide research initiative in Data Science
and Analytics. The successful applicant will have an earned doctorate with
an exceptional record of achievement and will be expected to maintain
an externally funded research program that will catalyze a larger group
of interdisciplinary scientists. The responsibilities of the position include
teaching quantitative skills such as programming and statistical modeling at
the graduate and undergraduate level.
We offer a collegial environment, excellent facilities, a competitive start
up package, and a competitive nine-month salary commensurate with
experience.
Preliminary inquiries about the position can be made to Dan Janies via
email djanies@uncc.edu. However, formal applications must be made
electronically at https://jobs.uncc.edu (position #1074) and must include
a CV, contact information for 4 references, and statements on research
and teaching. The University of North Carolina at Charlotte is an EOE/AA
employer and an NSF ADVANCE institution.
For additional information, please visit our websites at
http://bioinformatics.uncc.edu and http://transforming-science.com.
48 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

Cancer
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The Belfer Center for Applied Cancer Science at the
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50 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

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2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 51

LETTERS
letters@newscientist.com @newscientist newscientist
EDITOR’S PICK
Theory proposes,
the world disposes
From Michael Duff
I take issue with the critique of the
role of experiment in theoretical
physics by Jim Baggott and Daniel
Cossins (27 February, p 38). May
a physicist be allowed to set the
record straight? The concept of
supersymmetry was not
“conceived as an elegant way to
plug holes in the standard model”
of particle physics. It was first
noted by string theorists and then
applied to supergravity. Had Albert
Einstein not discovered relativity,
then supersymmetry would force
us to invent it.
Most string theorists share
the view that in the long term
the test of a good theory is
experiment. The jury is still out
on the multiverse, for example.
It is those who claim already
to know whether or not our
universe is unique who are being
unscientific – as are those who
claim to know what can and can’t
one day be tested.
Baggott and Cossins write that
“theoretical physicists have grown
increasingly comfortable plucking
theories out of thin air… The Higgs
boson is a case in point.” But the
Higgs was proposed in 1964 and
discovered in 2012, in one of
theory’s greatest triumphs. And
let’s not forget gravitational
waves, first proposed in 1916,
whose discovery 100 years later
confirmed the existence of black
holes – which were proposed by
John Michell in 1783.
London, UK
Social intelligence
all the way down
From Duncan Butlin
Aviva Rutkin focuses on the
wrong sort of human behaviour
when comparing human and
artificial intelligence (19 March,
p 20). The human brain is not
designed to be good at chess,
Jeopardy or Go.
Even object manipulation is not
one of our fortes. It is the things
we do socially that a machine will
find very hard to match. Making
sure granny is offered the last
cucumber sandwich at a tea party,
or ceasing to discipline a child
when you sense you may go too
far, for example. When machines
can model human behaviour
in groups, in all its recursive
splendour, only then will we have
a real challenge on our hands.
Chichester, West Sussex, UK
Ingredient-free
marketing works
From Richard Nissen
Shannon Fischer’s description
of the power of placebos is
fascinating (12 March, p 32). It
chimes with my having heard
the marketing manager for a bigbrand
painkiller saying that the
more you advertise the stronger
the drug becomes – and that its
effects kick in within 5 minutes,
which is pharmacologically
impossible.
London, UK
How would loyalty
cancel a stench?
From Garry Trethewey
You report a finding that body
odour produces less disgust
when attributed to a member
of the smeller’s group, and
Stephen Reicher’s comment that
because loyalties can affect a core
biological response that shows
how powerful and malleable
group identities can be
(27 February, p 20). I find it more
interesting that a “core biological
response” can be affected by
psychosocial events. I wonder
whether this is a basis for the
placebo effect.
Cherryville, South Australia
Is doping partly
mind over matter?
From Alastair Monro
In recurrent furores over doping
in sports, I have not noticed any
consideration of the role of the
brain in performance as outlined
in James Witts’s informative
article (30 January, p 38). Could
any improved performance of
an athlete on a performanceenhancing
drug not be due, at
least in part, to a mental change?
Having worked on many
clinical trials, I propose one for
athletes in which half of the test
group is on the real drug and half
on a placebo, no one knowing
which. Sadly, I find it difficult to
imagine top athletes agreeing to
participate in such a study.
Sandwich, Kent, UK
A bump passing in
the quantum night
From Alan Wilson
I am as excited as anyone about
the possibility of a new particle
being discovered that would
shake up our understanding of
the universe (5 March, p 30). But
I am a little alarmed that it turns
up at exactly six times the mass
of the Higgs boson.
To me it seems more likely
that it is an artefact of statistical
analysis, and might turn out to be,
to put it in musical instrument
terms, a harmonic of the Higgs.
I fear that it will just fade away
like the Cheshire Cat, leaving
nothing behind but an enigmatic,
vanishing smile. Of course, the
idea of a harmonic might just
be plausible if we visualise it in
terms of string theory.
Colmworth, Bedfordshire, UK
Fusion reactors
are all difficult
From Alessandro Tesini
David Hambling mentions a new
breed of leaner, meaner nuclear
fusion reactor, including the
“affordable, robust, compact”
ARC device (30 January, p 34). But
the claims for ARC include rapid
dismantling and re-assembly of
the lining and the shell of the
“doughnut” in which fusion takes
place. These need to be replaced
as the flux of neutrons from the
reaction makes them radioactive
and thus weakens them.
I can report from experience
that this replacement will require
a very big “hot cell” containing
complex equipment for remote
handling of the radioactive parts.
The ARC designers propose
including a tank of molten
fluorine-lithium-beryllium salt
(FLiBe) in the shell. This will
involve solving the problem of
welding replacement segments of
the tank to irradiated metal in the
adjacent segments. And there are
issues of toxicity and long-lasting
radioactive contamination of the
FLiBe. ARC’s claimed “plug-andplay”
flexible configuration is
only theoretical: the more
radioactive it becomes, the more
difficult it will be to reconfigure
it to the extent claimed.
Luynes, France
How to detect an
absent neutrino
From Dieter Gold
Matthew Chalmers describes the
neutronless double beta decay
and the difficulty of detecting it
(13 February, p 30). It is already
very difficult to detect the
presence of a neutrino.
52 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

“Until the poachers come through and kill
them. Will they have some sort of protection?”
Sara Mains Palkovich is sceptical about plans to
reintroduce extinct species to Europe (26 March, p 8)
So how can we be sure we
have detected the absence of a
neutrino? How can researchers
be sure that they have observed
a double beta decay without a
neutrino, instead of one with two
of them? Can there be sufficiently
precise measurement of the
momentum of the detected
particles to be sure that no
momentum is carried away by
the neutrinos of an ordinary
double beta decay?
Voiron, France
From Lindsay Coker
An intriguing cover line: “Once in
100 trillion trillion years – we’re
about to see the rarest event in the
universe” (13 February), though
the article (p 30) says it may
happen every 10 25 years.
Mornington, Victoria, Australia
The editor writes:
■ Neutrinoless double beta decay
(NDBD) does emit electrons,
whose energies and directions
of motion can be measured
accurately enough to discriminate
it from other decays. And the
article reported the lower limit
on NDBD half-life, established as
TOM GAULD
10 25 years, though the full range
now being investigated stretches
up to 10 27 years.
Nudge theory and
regulation practice
From Hugh Robertson,
Senior Policy Officer, Trades
Union Congress
Your leader “A nudge too far?”
makes some interesting points
but perpetuates the idea that
the work of the UK Behavioural
Insights Team uses a solely
“evidence-based” approach
(12 March, p 5). As you rightly
point out, nudges are seen as a
replacement for legislation. It
would therefore be appropriate
to compare the outcome of a
“nudge” with the likely outcome
of regulation.
That is not what the trials
do. The biggest nudge in the
UK was the Responsibility Deal
which attempted a voluntary
approach to health issues around
food, alcohol and the workplace
by getting pledges from
manufacturers, retailers and
employers. These were viewed
by most public health experts
as totally ineffective. Instead,
there have been calls for the
government to introduce
regulation such as compulsory
labelling and minimum
alcohol pricing. The deals have
all now been abandoned by the
government and a sugar tax has
been announced.
Nudge theory has its place, but
to state that it is evidence-based
is a stretch when, in the UK, its
application is underpinned by
an ideological assumption that
regulation is inherently negative.
The evidence is that regulation
can be far more effective than
behavioural interventions, as
shown by a range of public safety
and health laws, from seat-belt
use to workplace smoking.
London, UK
Shocking timing
in obedience trial
From Chris Wilkinson
Andy Coghlan reports a modified
version of the infamous Milgram
experiment on obeying orders, in
which participants were asked to
estimate the time lapse between
pressing a key and hearing a tone,
in milliseconds (27 February, p 14).
My estimate is that the best that
I could do would be to report to
the nearest 250 milliseconds. Did
some reported estimates really
go to three significant digits?
Turramurra, New South Wales,
Australia
The editor writes:
■ The experiment built on earlier
work showing that the perceived
time delay (not necessarily the
actual delay) correlates with a
sense of agency or control.
Participants were indeed asked to
make use of all possible numbers
between 0 and 1000 milliseconds.
For the record
■ This one is far away: it was Mike
Brown of the California Institute of
Technology who observed that, seen
from the Oort cloud, the sun appears
so small that you could completely
block it out with the head of a pin
(19 March, p 30).
■ Delila Gasi-Tandefelt and her
colleagues are taking blood samples
from men with advanced prostate
cancer in sequence, not at fixed
intervals (19 March, p 38). And Bert
Vogelstein and colleagues make
strands of DNA that mirror their
target mutation, and tag these with
a fluorescent marker so that they can
detect any bits of mutated DNA that
stick to their bait.
■ A bass-ic mistake: the song of
lonely Whale 52 has recently
deepened from 52 Hz to 47 Hz
(19 March, p 30).
Letters should be sent to:
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2 April 2016 | NewScientist | 53

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PAUL MCDEVITT
WHEN is a drug not a drug? The
UK government’s Psychoactive
Substances bill seeks to prohibit the
sale of consumables that affect a
person’s mental state. Previously,
the minister in charge of the bill, Mike
Penning, insisted “We will ensure that
we insert what we want to insert,
while at the same time having a
blanket ban” (14 November, 2015).
Now we learn what he meant as,
in addition to the government’s own
lengthy list of exempted inebriants
such as alcohol and nicotine, the
Advisory Council on the Misuse of
Drugs (ACMD) has been tasked with
finding a way to exclude alkyl nitrites.
Otherwise known as poppers,
this recreational drug is a popular
sex aid because of its muscle-relaxing
effects, as well as its instant high.
Following an investigation, the ACMD
reported that although poppers
increase blood flow to the brain, they
don’t cross the blood-brain barrier.
The ACMD concludes that any
psychoactivity is a peripheral effect,
and poppers do not directly stimulate
the central nervous system – even
though users feel a high. The circle
deftly squared, another popular drug
falls outside the UK’s increasingly
threadbare blanket ban on drugs.
FURTHER to observations on the
quantum superposition of USB
cables (5 March), Sue McDonald
comes unstuck over another case
of strange geometries.
“I was trying to find the end
of the sticky tape on its roll,” she
writes. “Assuming the roll is a
circle with an infinite number of
sides, I’ve experienced infinity + 1,
which is the number of sides of
the sticky tape roll I have to
investigate before finding the
end of the tape.”
Feedback thinks this is a serious
underestimate – we have to rotate
a roll of sticky tape through at
least 720 degrees before finding
the end.
SWISS army equipper Victorinox
have been pricked by criticism after
a customer noticed the online store
had 51 “neutral” pocket knives and
“Daylight Saving Time is A Reminder to Change
Clocks” – Andrew Doble receives some timely
advice from Florida’s Village Daily Sun
one “female” model – which was,
predictably, pink. Feedback pauses
here to spare a thought for all the
women who have been toiling with
unsuitably gendered knives until now.
Taken to task, the company
quickly announced that the offending
classification would be cut from
their website.
IAN WITHAM writes in with a
money-saving tip. “Those herbal
remedies that contain none of
the advertised herbs will not be
wasted,” (12 March) he says. “They
can be relabelled and sold as
homoeopathic remedies.”
WHAT mires lie in wait for scientists
who stray from their field of expertise.
Famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse
Tyson got bogged down earlier this
month when he tweeted: “If there
were ever a species for whom sex
hurt, it surely went extinct long ago.”
Biologists quickly directed the
space scientist to the many examples
of painful sex, from barbed penises to
traumatic insemination. In the face of
many angry ornithologists shouting
about duck vaginas, Tyson dialled
back on his first tweet and offered an
olive branch to the life sciences with
another aphorism: “If you have a gene
for celibacy, you didn’t inherit it.”
Oh dear. May Feedback offer one in
reply: “It’s better for an astrophysicist
to remain silent on the subject of
biology and be thought a fool, than to
open his mouth and remove all doubt.”
A PRESS flyer from Alan Dolan,
Lanzarote-based respiratory guru
to the stars, invites Feedback’s
colleague to his next breathing
retreat, “a powerful and intensive
five days in which to relax”, by,
err, breathing.
But no ordinary breathing
of course, this is Conscious
Breathing, “a powerful and
safe way to infuse the body with
oxygen”. By wresting control of
respiration from your brainstem –
which Feedback notes has been
managing it competently and
continuously since the day you
were born – Alan says you will
enjoy a bingo card of vaguely
worded benefits, such as higher
levels of consciousness, reenergised
systems, and a detox
for every level of your being.
“I’m sceptical,” admits our
colleague, “but I think I need to be
sent to Lanzarote to investigate.”
THE apple doesn’t fall far from the
tree: “Your mention of Lucy de la
Pasture (5 March) reminds me of the
novelist Mrs Henry de la Pasture,”
writes Griselda Mussett. “Her
daughter Esmée was also a novelist,
and chose the name Delafield to mark
the distinction between them.”
A DENTAL firm is offering Glyn
Williams “new ways to replace
your teeth with digital
technology”. Aside from this
sounding very uncomfortable,
Feedback thinks it would be a
chore having to upgrade your
mouth every two years.
IN CONTRAST to the UK, drug
law reform in the US is of a more
permissive kind, fuelling a
commodities market in cannabis, but
so far, possession is still illegal in Ohio.
However, you could be forgiven
for wondering if the state’s leading
gardening supplies manufacturer,
The Scott’s Miracle Gro Company,
is planning to diversify its business
portfolio. A recent online advert for
the company’s lawn seed ran with the
tagline “Grass: it smells good. It feels
good. It looks good. It is good.”
You can send stories to Feedback by
email at feedback@newscientist.com.
Please include your home address.
This week’s and past Feedbacks can
be seen on our website.
56 | NewScientist | 2 April 2016

THE LAST WORD
Last words past and present at newscientist.com/lastword
Atomic bonds
On an atomic level, how do Post-it
notes stick to things?
Post-it notes are a classic
application of polymer chemistry.
Funnily enough, the stickiness in
question was discovered when
Spencer Silver was trying to
produce an incredibly strong
adhesive in 1968. Instead, he
produced an incredibly weak
one, but most discoveries are
accidents, so who is going
to complain? Perhaps just
students like myself as we
stick up reminders of our
exam dates and assignments.
The glue used in Post-it notes
is a pressure-sensitive adhesive.
This means you only need to
apply light pressure to stick the
“The adhesive in Post-it
notes was discovered
when trying to produce an
incredibly strong adhesive”
note to something. The bond
between the note and the surface
is formed through a fine balance
between flow and resistance to
it. The adhesive can flow just
enough to fill tiny crevices on
the surface, but will resist flow
enough to remain there. This
produces the bond between the
note and the surface.
If we zoom in further, we can
see that on a molecular level, the
biggest contributors to the bond
strength are van der Waals forces.
These are created when a molecule
has more of its electrons on one
side than the other, producing a
dipole (like a tiny magnet). This
induces the opposite dipole in
another molecule nearby and the
two stick to each other. Van der
Waals forces are normally weak,
but they increase in strength as
the size of the molecules grows.
Bradley Clarke
Brighton, East Sussex, UK
Post-it adhesive sticks in
much the same way as any
other pressure-sensitive contact
adhesive: through a combination
of van der Waals forces, a decent
balance of cohesion (the glue
molecules sticking to each other)
and adhesion (sticking to
everything else), and good contact
with the microscopic topography
of the target surface.
The more interesting
question is how the notes peel off
harmlessly. In practice, peeling
leaves microscopic traces of
Post-it glue on the target surface,
but those are generally too small
to cause visible damage. The
secret is the molecular structure
of the polymer, which forms a
delicate network that links
relatively large lumps together.
Imagine it as being like a tennis
net with sticky balls attached at
intervals over most of its surface.
The Post-it paper soaks up and
holds powerfully onto one full
surface of the adhesive mass (the
tennis ball), but only one cheek of
each sphere (or ball) sticks out,
just touching the other surface.
This has two important effects:
ensuring that cohesive forces
greatly exceed adhesive ones, and
that peeling the paper off the
target pulls on only the next ball
in line – each requiring only a
small force at a concentrated
point, almost like undoing a zip
tooth by tooth. Strong contact
adhesives are different in that
they spread the peeling forces
over as wide an area as possible.
They make it hard to pull any
point free without fighting all
the neighbouring adhesive
material at the same time.
Jon Richfield,
Somerset West, South Africa
Liquid gold
I recently saw vodka in the
supermarket with real gold leaf flakes
in it. What caught my eye was that the
gold flakes were distributed uniformly
throughout the bottle. Gold is much
denser than water, so why don’t they
sink to the bottom?
(Continued)
One product that displays the
behaviour described is Smirnoff
Gold Cinnamon Flavoured
Liqueur. If a bottle of this is rotated
gently through about 45 degrees
clockwise, the gold flakes follow
the clockwise motion, but will
then “rebound” anticlockwise
when you stop. You can often
observe similar rebounding if you
stir a bowl of soup. This is not the
behaviour of a Newtonian fluid,
so the bottle probably contains
something other than the usual
constituents – perhaps some
gelling agent.
The gelatinous motion of the
bottle’s contents is more
reminiscent of a weak Bingham
plastic, a material that remains
rigid until it experiences a
sufficient level of shear stress
to start behaving as a viscous fluid
(for example, mayonnaise).
This can be confirmed by
shaking the bottle and observing
the motion of the air bubbles:
as they rise, you can clearly see
that they are threading their way
through an invisible solid matrix,
and some bubbles even become
trapped in it.
Terry Collins
Harrogate, North Yorkshire, UK
This week’s
questions
CASE LAW
Do neatly folded clothes take
up less luggage space? Logic
suggests that just stuffing
them in – which is my favoured
approach – would take up the
same space, or perhaps even
less if you use a bit of pressure.
Practice suggests otherwise.
Ben Calascione
London, UK
SURF’S UP
Surfers are often heard to say, on
a day of meagre waves, that one
should wait for the tide to turn
because the waves will get bigger
when the tide is “on the push”. Is
there any reason to believe that
waves will increase in height with
an incoming tide?
Colin Risner
St Austell, Cornwall, UK
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